Yale men’s basketball has not been a second-half team this season, but that changed at the M&T Bank Arena in Hamden, Conn., Monday night as the Bulldogs used a 17-2 second-half run to fuel a 73-66 win at Quinnipiac.
Yale (7-5) trailed 35-29 at the half.
“In the second half, we decided that winning was more important than personal wants,” said sophomore forward Danny Wolf, who led Yale with 22 points and 12 rebounds.
Yale was a woeful 11-for-30 from the field in the first half, and only a rebounding edge of 21-14 kept them in the game.
“We came out soft in the first half,” coach James Jones said.
The second half was a different statistical story, as Yale was 15-for-26 and 4-for-10 from three-point land.
Yale rans its offense with precision in the last stanza, continually pounding the ball inside. The Bulldogs enjoyed a staggering 36-18 point advantage in the paint for the game.
Sophomore forward Casey Simmons played a season-high 19 minutes and contributed 11 points on 4-for-5 shooting, including his second trey of the season.
“He was tremendous,” Jones said. “He stepped up. Nice to have him have some offense.”
Jones’ lineup is still very much a work in progress. Senior forward Yussif Basa-Ama played a season-high 4:57, and seldom used junior forward Jack Molloy played 3:26.
Quinnipiac (7-3) was led by Matt Balanc who had a game-high 25 points on 8-for-16 shooting.
The two foes, separated by only 15 minutes, had not met since 2014. The teams are slated to play each other at Yale next season.
Quinnipiac had been 5-0 at home.
Things don’t get any easier for Yale, which will travel to Allen Fieldhouse to meet No. 2 Kansas on December 22.