So much for a nip-and-tuck game with arch-rival Princeton.
And so much for a trap game at Penn in between playing at Princeton and Cornell.
Yale answered those bells emphatically with a 77-70 win at Jadwin Gym and a 90-61 win at The Palestra.
In fairness to Penn, it was a 12-point game with a little under six minutes t0 play and then Yale closed the game out with a 23-6 run. But the game was never in doubt.
If consistency is a virtue, then Yale was more than virtuous. The Bulldogs shot 57% from the filed in both games and held both Princeton and Penn to 34% shooting.
“That’s a really good Yale basketball game,” Yale coach James Jones said. “A really good game from us from start to finish.”
Yale added a new dimension in Philly. The Bulldogs entered the game shooting under 75% from the charity stripe bu went 18-for-22 (81%).
Was Jones fully satisfied with his team? Of course not. He is a perfectionist.
“We turn the ball over 11 times tonight,” Jones said. “We can be a lot better at that.”
Yale (13-6, 7-0 Ivy) is on a season-high seven-game winning streak in which it has outscored its Ivy opponents by an average of 85-66.
Yale has a season-and-Ivy-best KenPom of 68.
The Bulldogs are at Cornell (13-6, 5-1) on Saturday at 2 p.m.
Yale has lost three straight in Ithaca and last won there in 2020.