Cornell men’s basketball was 14-0 when giving up 76 or fewer points this season.
Make that 14-1, as Yale defeated the Big Red, 69-57, at Levien Gym to advance to the Ivy League Tournament final against Brown at noon Sunday.
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Cornell men’s basketball was 14-0 when giving up 76 or fewer points this season.
Make that 14-1, as Yale defeated the Big Red, 69-57, at Levien Gym to advance to the Ivy League Tournament final against Brown at noon Sunday.
AARON COOLEY for the WINNNNNNNNN#EverTrue x @aaronxcooley pic.twitter.com/LiMs6M8ObT
— Brown Men’s Basketball (@BrownU_MBB) March 9, 2024
Brown men’s basketball led Yale once at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday.
That lead, 84-81, was the final score courtesy of a last-second shot for the ages by Bears junior guard/forward Aaron Cooley, cementing a remarkable comeback win for the Bears over the Bulldogs in both teams’ regular season finales as they prepare for the Ivy League Tournament.
Yale men’s basketball picked the right time of the year to peak.
The Bulldogs thrashed Harvard, 80-60, at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday night to move to persist in sharing the Ivy League’s top slot with Princeton.
“We had as good a start to finish as we have had in a long time,” coach James Jones said.
Jonathan Schiller was a three-year letterwinner for Columbia men’s basketball and was a member of the legendary 1967-68 Columbia team. He was inducted into the Columbia University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006 and named a Legend of Ivy Basketball in 2017. He is a founding partner of the law firm of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP. Ivy Hoops Online recently sat down with him:
“It was Yale basketball,” Yale coach James Jones said. ”We did what we want to: defense, rebounding and sharing the ball. We managed the game.”
For the Bulldogs, game management meant a convincing 80-56 win over outmanned Dartmouth Friday at John J. Lee Amphitheater.
Yale men’s basketball shook off the rust of a narrow loss in Ithaca Friday night and closed strong to defeat Columbia at Levien Gym, 84-76.
“Really gutsy performance with some guys injured,” Yale coach James Jones said.
Seven-foot sophomore frontcourt stalwart Danny Wolf played the game with a mask after suffering a broken nose against Cornell. Wolf, Yale’s leading scorer, was coming off two subpar performances at Princeton and Cornell. Wolf finished with 20 points on 9-for-15 shooting and added a team-leading nine rebounds.
Jones said that Wolf “played the way he is capable (of).”
Princeton coach Mitch Henderson was asked after the Tigers’ 73-62 win over Yale Saturday night by Asbury Park Press college basketball writer Jerry Carino what it says about the NCAA’s system for selecting NCAA Tournament teams that there’s no hope for an at-large Ivy League bid.
“These guys signed up knowing we’ve got to win the league and we’ve got to win the [Ivy League] Tournament,” Henderson said.
Perhaps Henderson was trying to be politically correct or keep his team’s focus on winning the Ivy tourney. But the discussion about a two-bid Ivy is far from closed.
Yale men’s basketball was down to Princeton 49-47 with 10:37 remaining in the game Saturday night. Nothing surprising there.
What is surprising is that the game was that close with zero points from Matt Knowling and Danny Wolf.
Matt Elkin joined the Yale men’s basketball staff in Oct. 2020 as director of basketball operations after serving as an assistant coach at the Windward School in Los Angeles. Ivy Hoops Online caught up with Elkin Tuesday:
Casey Simmons is a 6-foot-6 sophomore at Yale from Milton, Mass. averaging 3.7 points and 2.2 rebounds in 13.9 minutes per game. The forward transferred from Northwestern, where he played in 27 games and made seven starts in 2021-22. Simmons sat down with Ivy Hoops Online Monday: