NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Bez Mbeng was not in the mood for mincing words after setting Yale’s all-time career steals record in an 83-67 win over Dartmouth Monday afternoon.
“I love defense,” Mbeng, who passed former Yale standout Alex Zampier (2006-10) for the record, said.
And as he has for most of the last three seasons for Yale, Mbeng led the way in that department Monday at Lee Amphitheater, harassing Ryan Cornish, Connor Amundsen, or whomever else he was in the neighborhood of, finishing with three steals to go with 16 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
“It means a lot to me,” Mbeng said. “A lot of credit goes to my teammates and coaches for getting me better and putting me in good positions to get those steals. I’m just really thankful right now.”
Yale held formerly high-flying Dartmouth to just 0.88 points per possession and just 5-for-23 from behind the three-point arc, including a five-minute stretch to start the second half where Dartmouth – who led by as much as five in the later stages of the first half – was held scoreless. By the time the Big Green could get anything to fall, they were down double digits and never coming back.
“I told the team that we’re going to get everyone’s best game now,” Yale coach James Jones said. “I thought Dartmouth played really hard and took some things away. They did whatever they could to keep us down, obviously that’s what they’re supposed to. We have to do a better job of reacting sooner and not wait until the second half. The difference in the game was how we opened the second half. The defensive energy from the team was awesome.”
Said Dartmouth coach David McLaughlin: “The last two minutes of the first half (Dartmouth led 37-32) was not great. When you’re on the road, you want to go into the locker room with the lead and we weren’t able to. Film will tell us exactly what happened. In the second half, they tried to establish the post and I think we missed some decent looks and suddenly we were down 13. That’s what good teams do, they capitalize on stretches like that.”
In a previous season, Mbeng might have sat most of the first half after picking up his second foul just 2:45 into the game. Jones has long rated high on the KenPom auto-sit lists of coaches who rarely put players back into games in the first half with two fouls. But Mbeng is a senior leader and with 12:20 on the clock, Mbeng was at the scorer’s table. He did not pick up a third foul in the first half.
“I knew I was going to put him back in because I trust him,” Jones said. “He played the whole rest of the half and didn’t pick up his third foul. I took him out the last minute because I didn’t want to take any chances or something crazy to happen.”
However, Yale’s defense has been pretty inconsistent at times this season, currently 119th nationally in defensive efficiency, while its offense – led by John Poulakidas – is much higher, at 56th. The Bulldogs gave up 90 to Illinois Chicago and Purdue and 100 to Delaware (who went for 1.33 ppp) and had to outscore Columbia last week in Manhattan, 92-88, with the Lions checking in at 1.14 ppp.
Yale’s defensive inconsistency is more strange when you consider Mbeng is the two-time reigning Ivy Defensive Player of the Year and Casey Simmons – who has played an increased role this season – is also regarded as a lockdown defender. Monday, Jones and his staff put Simmons, at 6-foot-6, on freshman point guard Connor Amundsen (5-foot-11). Amundsen managed to get to the free throw line 13 times (9-for-13), but he only took two shots (making neither) from the field and had only two assists.
“I had a coach call me and ask me what schemes we use to stop another team, and I said, ‘I just put Bez on their best player.’ And what’s great is that he wants that challenge,” Jones said. “The desire to be good on that side of the ball drives him. It will be sad when he graduates.”
The Bulldogs are only 246th in forcing turnovers (16.5%), but Jones has never been an aggressive coach on that front. The defensive rebounding (75.9%, ninth nationally) is outstanding and the two-point defense (47.4%, 60th) is solid, so that leaves only two data points where Yale is struggling. Its three-point defense is currently 225th at 34.5%, even with Dartmouth’s poor performance, but there is a little luck involved there and is something Yale has addressed.
Yale is also 263rd in free throw rate, last in the Ivy League through three games after committing 21 fouls against Columbia and 20 Monday. But the scary part for the Ivy League: Yale is 3-0 anyway and actually leads the conference in league play despite all that at 0.976 ppp given up so far.
So Yale has plenty of room for improvement. Consider Poulakidas missed his first six three-pointers Monday, while Simmons, Nick Townsend, and Samson Aletan all missed a couple of seemingly easy shots in the paint and the Bulldogs finished 5-for-18 overall from behind the arc. If they can dial the defense in, their ceiling is the highest of anyone in the Ivy League by a pretty wide margin right now.
“What’s great about us is that we can absorb a night where he (Poulakidas) goes 4-for-13,” Jones said. “He still scored in double figures, but all five starters did, and they can pick him up when he’s getting that much attention.”
Meanwhile, despite Monday’s result, there is plenty of reason for optimism for Dartmouth. A new uptempo offense that new assistant coach Rich Glesmann brought from his time coaching in Japan has injected life, and Dartmouth was a possession arrow and Xaivian Lee cold-blooded three-pointer away from being 2-0 in the Ivy before the Yale loss.
The Big Green have not been to the NCAA Tournament since 1959, have never been to the Ivy League Tournament and haven’t even posted a winning league record since 1998-99, so any hope is good. Senior Ryan Cornish led Dartmouth with 16 points Monday and has had his healthiest and most consistent season with the program.
Amundsen is shooting 46% from behind the arc (which is why Simmons was paying him so much attention) and has been stellar as a freshman, while Brandon Mitchell-Day, Romeo Myrthil, Jackson Munro, Cade Haskins, and Jayden Williams all have three or more years in the program and Dartmouth has relied on that experience.
The Big Green’s next three games are all on the road: at Brown, Cornell and Columbia, and if they can make some headway there, they may have a real chance to be a part of Ivy Madness.
“Tomorrow (Tuesday), we need to learn from Saturday and today (Monday), and then we get ready for Brown,” McLaughlin said. “We have a good group, they’ll be ready to go, and they know the league is unforgiving. We’ll be ready.”