Yale won its fifth Ivy League championship in the last eight seasons Saturday with an 84-75 win at Brown before a sold-out, rowdy crowd of 2,003 at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” 24-year Yale coach James Jones said. “To be able to win on the road in a hostile environment shows the character of the guys in our locker room.”
Brown, meanwhile, missed out on an opportunity to punch the program’s first ever Ivy League Tournament ticket with the loss, allowing Cornell to sneak into the tourney.
Yale (20-7, 10-4 Ivy) shot 55% from the field, and the Yale bench outscored Brown’s reserves, 20-11.
Yale played a third straight game without leading scorer Matt Knowling, who remains out with an ankle sprain.
The Bulldogs ran out to a 23-9 lead before Brown (14-13, 7-7) rallied to cut the deficit to 34-33 at the half.
Brown went up 43-40 on a trey by senior guard Paxson Wojcik. But then Yale took over, going on a 12-0 run to lead 58-46. Brown cut it to 62-57 on a three by sophomore guard Kino Lilly Jr., but it would get no closer.
“Our guys played really tough,” Jones said. “We did some things out of character to let them back in the game, but we hunkered down and made the right plays down the stretch.”
Sophomore guard Bez Mbeng scored a career-high 27 points on 10-for-12 shooting, while sophomore guard John Poulakidas added 14 points. Junior guard August Mahoney and sophomore guard Yassine Gharram contributed 12 and 10 points, respectively. Wojcik’s 25 points led the Bears.
It was the third game in a row in which a different Yale player delivered a career scoring high to pace the Bulldogs. Poulakidas had 30 against Princeton, while senior forward EJ Jarvis poured 34 on Cornell last weekend.
Yale earned the No. 1 seed in the Ivy tourney over Princeton by virtue of topping the Tigers twice during the season. The Bulldogs will face Cornell Saturday at 11 a.m. at Jadwin in a game to be televised on ESPNU. The Bulldogs split with the Big Red during the regular season.