It was billed as a battle between the two top Ivy scorers. And it lived up to expectations.
Senior guard John Poulakidas notched 29 points, one off his career high, to lead Yale to a 92-88 win over Columbia at Levien Gym Saturday.
“I take my work and my craft very seriously,” Poulakidas said. “We have a team full of dogs.”
Yale senior guard Bez Mbeng held the Ivy League’s second-leading scorer, senior guard Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa, to 17 points, two under his season average. Rubio De La Rosa shot only 5-for-15 from the field.
Columbia (11-4, 0-2 Ivy) grabbed an early 9-5 lead on a trey by senior forward Noah Robledo trey. Poulakidas scored his 11th point of the game on a triple, putting Yale (9-6, 2-0) up 17-14.
Junior forward Blair Thompson picked Mbeng’s pocket and laid it in at the buzzer to give Columbia a 40-39 halftime lead aided by 11 Yale 11-first-half turnovers.
A Rubio De La Rosa trey put Columbia up 67-62 before a spin move and subsequent lay-in by junior forward Nick Townsend keyed a 6-0 Yale run to put the Bulldogs up 68-67.
Two Townsend free throws gave Yale its largest lead at 82-72 with 2:08 remaining.
A three from junior guard Avery Brown cut the lead to 90-88 with 30 seconds remaining. Two Mbeng free throws closed out the win.
“It’s always hard to win games on the road,” Yale coach James Jones said.
Columbia was playing without injured junior forward Zine Eddine Bedri.
Brown posted a career-high 21 points. Townsend chipped in with 20 points on 8-for-12 shooting and nine rebounds for Yale, which outrebounded Columbia by an authoritative 46-29 margin.
Poulakidas canned six threes, two more than the rest of his teammates. The Bulldogs need to find another true three-point threat to reach their full potential.
Next up on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Yale hosts Dartmouth and Columbia is at Princeton, both at 2 p.m.