Brown men’s basketball had everything to gain at the Pizzitola Sports Center today. Yale had pride on the line.
Pride won out, as Yale defeated Brown, 70-61 on Senior Day.
Brown needed a win, along with a Penn win over Princeton, to sneak into Ivy Madness at its home gym next weekend, but neither happened.
John Poulakidas shook off a couple of sub-par shooting nights and led the Elis with 27 points on 11-for-17 shooting, 5-for-10 from long range.
“John was special,” coach James Jones said. “He was John Poulakidas again.”
Yale opened up a 9-3 lead with five points from Poulakidas and led 22-8.
The Bears cut it to 22-18 on a 10-0 run.
Yale (20-7, 13-1) led 33-29 at the half. The Bulldogs pride themselves on rebounding and lead the Ivy League in both total rebounds and offensive rebounds. Brown (14-13, 6-8) outrebounded Yale on the offensive glass, 9-1 in the half.
Poulakidas had three first-half fouls.
“I got in foul trouble in the first half,” the Ivy leading scorer said. “I give all my credit to my bigs.”
A trey by senior guard Lyndel Erold knotted the score at 35, and then a layup by him, off of a senior guard Kino Lilly Jr. steal, gave Brown its first lead at 37-35.
Senior guard Poulakidas hit a midrange jumper to give Yale a lead which it never relinquished, at 59-53.
“I thought defensively we were really good, locked in,” said Jones.
Senior guard Bez Mbeng added 13 points for Yale.
Lilly led Brown with 19 points. He finishes his Brown career as the second-leading scorer in program history, behind Earl Hunt, with 1,878 points.
Brown junior forward Landon Lewis pulled down a game-high nine rebounds.
Yale has now won 20 or more games in five out of its last six seasons and swept the season series with Brown.
Brown had defeated Yale in the last game of the season last year at John J. Lee Amphitheater to knock Yale out of a regular season title.
Many preseason Ivy scribes thought that Yale would face Princeton in the Ivy tourney final. They will meet in the first semifinal on Saturday at 11 a.m. on ESPNU, with the winner facing the Dartmouth-Cornell winner for the NCAA bid.