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In the latest episode of Inside Ivy Hoops, Jill Glessner and Brett Franklin talk with Yale Athletic Director Tom Beckett and Princeton women’s coach Courtney Banghart while also previewing the final weekend of regular season play on both the men’s and women’s sides.
Examining the men’s side, Brett and Jill recap No. 4 seed tiebreakers and pick favorites to take the No. 4 seed, while Jill highlights what she thinks has been the game of the Ivy season so far:
Tobe Carberry is an assistant men’s basketball coach at Yale, joining the staff in 2017. He was a former star player in high school in New Haven, in college at Vermont and coached both at Central Connecticut State and LIU Brooklyn. Our Richard Kent connected with coach Carberry recently:
Ivy Hoops Online: How does recruiting differ in the Ivy League than your previous stops?
Joined by Yale coach James Jones and Ivy Hoops Online’s Princeton beat writer George Clark, IHO editor Mike Tony fills in for Jill Glessner and Brett Franklin as host of Inside Ivy Hoops this week.
Mike and George look back at the Penn men’s 82-65 rout of the Tigers at Jadwin Gym Tuesday night while considering what to expect from Princeton and Penn on both the men’s and women’s sides down the stretch, touting the strength of Ivy women’s basketball and much more:
Going Inside Ivy Hoops with Brett Franklin and Jill Glessner this week are Ivy Hoops Online writer Richard Kent, Brown women’s basketball assistant coach Tyler Patch and Columbia men’s head coach Jim Engles.
On the women’s side, Jill and Brett highlight Harvard’s home cooking, Penn winning the Big 5, Ivy back-to-backs creeping up on Dartmouth and the intrigue of contrasting styles with Friday’s Penn at Brown matchup. On the men’s side, they consider how many bitterly close losses Dartmouth can continue to swallow, Penn’s formidable frontcourt and more:
IHO’s Yale beat writer Richard Kent joins Brett and Jill on the expert hotline about when he expects Makai Mason to return for Yale, Trey Phills’s standout season, why the Yale men have a better shot at beating Princeton than Penn this weekend, whether the Yale women can claim an Ivy League Tournament berth this season and how Bella Alarie flew under Duke’s recruiting radar:
Tyler Patch discusses his path to becoming an assistant at Brown, the recruiting and execution that created Brown’s high-octane uptempo offense, lessons learned from the Bears’ back-to-back Ivy nail-biter losses last weekend and more.
Jim Engles reflects on his unique time at NJIT, Columbia starting this season with seven road games and Mike Smith’s relationship with NBA player Jimmy Butler while looking ahead to the Lions hosting Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend:
Record: 8-9 Overall and 1-0 Ivy (4-2 Home; 4-7 Away)
Rankings: KenPom #196; Bart Torvik #212; TeamRankings #152
What’s Hot
Sharing the Rock, Defensive Rebounding and Two-Point Shooting
Over the previous three seasons, Yale has been in the top 100 for assists. After the first half of the 2017-18 campaign, the Bulldogs are tops in the conference averaging 18.4 assists a game and their 67.2 percent rate is second in the country.
The Elis have a defensive rebounding rate of 73.0 percent, which is fourth in the Ivy League and top 90 nationally. While it may not be as high as the program’s 75.7 percent rate in its historic ‘15-‘16 season (top 10 nationally), it is on pace to be the second-best performance in the last 10 years.
Yale 77 vs Brown 63
Yale (8-6; 1-0 Ivy) opened up its march to Ivy Madness with a double digit victory over Brown (12-2; 0-1 Ivy) in a Friday matinee contest at the John J. Lee Amphitheater. After a poor shooting first quarter from both teams, Yale entered the second frame up 3 and stretched it to six at halftime. The Bears came out hot at the beginning of the third quarter, going on an 8-0 run over the first 1:36 to take a 39-37 lead. From there, the teams stayed close and were tied at 58 with 6:54 left in the fourth quarter. Two Tamara Simpson steals and layups in nine seconds sparked Yale to a 10-0 run that put the game out of reach.
Richard Kent of Ivy Hoops Online connected with Yale coach James Jones for insight into how Yale has moved on after losing Jordan Bruner and Makai Mason to injury (the former for the season).
Ivy Hoops Online: Perhaps no coach in the country this season has been forced to employ the next man up strategy as much as you. How difficult has that been?
James Jones: We’ve worked hard to get the young players in our program ready so when their number is called they will be ready. This year has been no different, we’re just using more of our bench players than we normally would.
IHO: Your team really seemed to click against Lehigh (in an 86-77 road win). Was that your best performance to date?
JJ: Several games this season we’ve been able to play at a high level. I’d say Lehigh (Dec. 6), St Bonaventure (a 75-67 road loss on Dec. 9) and Kennesaw State (an 89-74 road win on Dec. 30) were all played at about the same level.
As first reported by NBC Sports, Yale has lost sophomore forward Jordan Bruner and Yale senior guard Makai Mason to injury, Bruner for the entire season and Mason for up to two months.
Mason is reportedly dealing with a stress fracture in his right foot, the same foot that was broken in a scrimmage against Boston University before the start of the 2016-17 campaign, causing him to miss the entire season.
Mason was wearing a device in his shoe to take pressure off the area that he hurt last year, the New Haven Register reported, adding that he likely wound up putting more pressure on the rest of his foot, where he developed the stress fracture.
Yale’s Blue Madness scrimmage on Thursday night was a fun and loose affair for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams. Unlike the Cornell Red-White Scrimmage earlier in the week, there was little chance for anyone to get injured.
After introductions of both squads, the two teams held a three-point shooting contest, with Blake Reynolds defeating Jen Berkowitz in the finals. In the slam dunk contest, Trey Phills captured his second team title, defeating Jordan Bruner in the finals with a 360-degree jam.