HANOVER, N.H. – There was some concern for the Ivy League preseason favorite Yale men’s basketball team after it stumbled against Harvard at home on Jan. 31 and followed that up with a dreadful first half against Brown the following week before pulling it out.
But the Bulldog offense that had climbed as high as 15th nationally in efficiency back in nonconference play appears to be back. Dartmouth had no answers, particularly in the second half, as Yale rolled to an 83-70 win at Leede Arena Friday night.
“I think we were pretty clean offensively in both halves,” Yale coach James Jones said. “We were dominant and had good leads in both halves. Most games in the first half are going to be like a prizefight trying to figure each other out. That takes a little time, but I thought we played well.”
In addition to setting up a first-place showdown with Harvard Saturday in Boston, it was the 11th straight win for Yale (19-4, 7-2) in Hanover, dating back to the infamous (at least for Yale) Gabas Maldunas game that closed the 2014-15 season and prevented the Bulldogs from returning to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 53 years.
Since then, Yale has been to five NCAA Tournaments (and won two NCAA games) and is favored to make a sixth, all but clinching an Ivy League Tournament berth with Friday’s win (Yale has never missed an Ivy Madness).
A Kareem Thomas three-pointer capped an 8-0 run and gave Dartmouth (10-12, 4-5) a 12-10 lead with 12:45 left in the first half, but it would be its last. Yale slowly pulled away as the first half went on, even with Trevor Mullin on the bench in foul trouble. The Bulldogs forced 10 Dartmouth turnovers and turned them into 14 points as they took a 38-30 lead at the break.
With the Big Green trying to prevent Yale from destroying them from the three-point arc, the Bulldogs took advantage of driving lanes to shoot 24-for-40 from inside the arc. The Yale lead ballooned to 21 when Isaac Celiscar – one of five Yale players in double figures – registered back-to-back layups to make it 65-44 with 10:53 left.
However, as it always seems to do at home, Dartmouth gave it one last run, getting within 10 at 67-57 with 7:59 left. But the Big Green just could not get enough stops as Yale shot 17-for-28 from the field (60.7%) in the second half, finishing at 1.22 points per possession for the contest.
“They really get the ball where they want to get it,” Dartmouth coach David McLaughlin said. “They find every mismatch and they take advantage of that. When runs happen against a disciplined team, you have to stop that run by really forcing them into tough decisions, and we couldn’t do that at all tonight.”
Yale regained its top spot nationally in three-point shooting (41.9%) by shooting 7-for-15 from behind the arc, and is now 21st (13.9%) in turnover rate after committing just five Friday night. Unlike the old days of the Ivy League (or in 2015), the winner of Saturday’s Yale-Harvard game will not have the inside track to the automatic NCAA berth.
But it’s still a big game.
“I don’t think I ever look forward to any game of basketball more than another. It should be a fun atmosphere, though,” Jones said. “Everything Yale-Harvard is always special, so from that standpoint, it should be pretty cool.”
Mullin led all scorers with 17 points despite playing just 23 minutes, while Casey Simmons added 14, Nick Townsend (who attempted only one three-pointer) 13, Celiscar 12, and Riley Fox 11 to lead the balanced Bulldogs.
“I want to be better defensively, and I want to have better shot selection,” Jones said. “Our defense has been much better in league play, we were the No. 1 team coming into tonight, and we were No. 2 offensively, and we just want to keep getting better.”
Meanwhile, Dartmouth has now lost four of five and faces a pivotal home game Saturday against last-place Brown. Connor Amundsen scored 16 points and hit both of his threes, but Thomas had another poor shooting night, scoring just 11 on 2-for-8 shooting, while Brandon Mitchell-Day managed just four points on 2-for-7 shooting. The Big Green finish their season after Saturday with three of their last four on the road.
“You don’t spend every single minute on Yale this week when we have a back-to-back like this,” McLaughlin said. “In the locker room, that was the message, we have a lot of things we have to learn from this game, but the most important thing is to bounce back tomorrow. We have to get some food, get some rest and come back at it. No one will really care if we’re tired tomorrow.”