Richard Kent

Asked and answered: Sizing up Yale’s 3-0 start

by
Our Richard Kent answers the burning questions facing the Bulldogs, who have emerged as the favorite to win the Ivy crown after an impressive 3-0 start during which reigning Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears has gone stat-stuffing and Makai Mason has established himself as one of the premier backcourt players in the conference.
So how good is Yale?
Very good. Better than expectations. They are perched at 3-0, with wins over Sacred Heart and and a big win over Lehigh on the road last night, teams that are each ranked third in KenPom in their respective conferences (NEC and Patriot League).
 
Can they pull any upsets?
Look for them to beat either USC (Dec. 13) or Illinois (Dec. 9) on the road. They can hang with SMU (Nov. 22).

Read more

Yale Season Preview – Retribution

by

If one word could encapsulate Yale’s upcoming season, that word would be retribution.

 

The Elis lost the Ivy League championship and the coveted NCAA bid by a total of three points over two games within one week last March. As Bulldogs fans already know, they first fell at Dartmouth, 59-58, in a game which would have been the clincher and then they lost in a playoff at the Palestra, against arch-rival Harvard, by two.They have not been to the NCAAs since 1962.They were strangely denied an NIT bid, an eventuality which the Ivy office bears fault for not enough marketing of its teams during the season.
Yale won 22 games under all-time winningest coach James Jones, the school’s most since 1948-49.Those wins included one over then-defending national champion UConn on the road.

This year the Elis play another defending National Champion in Duke and take a road trip to powerhouse SMU, as well as a trip to Illinois.

You don’t hear the team members using the word retribution, but it’s lurking at every practice.

Read more

Yale all-time moment No. 1: Elis share the 2015 title

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We did Yale next by request of Justin Sears:

We all know the 2014-15 Yale men”s basketball season didn”t have a storybook ending. Just four months ago, Harvard edged out Yale at the Palestra, 53-51, in an already legendarily back-and-forth Ivy playoff game after the Bulldogs let a last-second lead literally slip away at Dartmouth that would have clinched the Elis” first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1962. Then the NIT online casino inexplicably slipped away too.

Read more

Yale all-time moment No. 2: CIT final berth in 2014

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

Yale”s run through the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT) first round in 2014 was quite the roller coaster. First, a three-pointer banked in by Justin Sears with 0.07 seconds left gave Yale a 69-68 squeaker over Quinnipiac. Then in the second round, Yale prevailed at Holy Cross, 71-66, overcoming a 66-65 deficit with 1:43 remaining to make James Jones online casino the winningest coach in Yale basketball history (surpassing Joe Vancisin). Yale”s next win came by a 72-69 at Ivy rival Columbia, which had beaten the Bulldogs 62-46 on the same Levien Gym floor.

Read more

Yale all-time moment No. 3: First ever postseason win

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

Yale won its first ever postseason game on March 14, 2002. It took a while, but the payoff was sweet.

Yale earned a NIT appearance three years removed from a 4-22 campaign in 1998-99 by virtue of its share of the Ivy title (part of our No. 9 moment). The Elis drew a road matchup with favored Rutgers at the Louis Brown Athletic Center (better known as the RAC), a notoriously difficult place for visitors to play where the Scarlet Knights were 15-1 prior to facing Yale.

Read more

Yale all-time moment No. 4: Beating Pistol Pete

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

Yale made some history at the 1969 Rainbow Classic in Hawaii by defeating LSU in the championship game, 97-94.

LSU was anything but a pushover that year, led by senior Pete Maravich, who averaged 44.5 (!) points per game, still the highest scoring total in NCAA history. But Yale’s Jim Morgan (who turned in 21.3 points per contest that year himself) outscored Maravich head-to-head 35-34 on Dec. 30, 1969, giving the Elis the edge they needed. LSU went on to finish second in the SEC that season, making Yale’s victory even more impressive. Yale finished 11-13 (7-7 Ivy, good for fourth in the conference), but beating Pete Maravich (and having a player outscore him) validates any season.

Yale all-time moment No. 5: Bulldogs’ 1961-62 season

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

The 1961-62 Yale Bulldogs are undoubtedly one of the greatest teams in school history, finishing 13-1 in Ivy play and 18-6 overall while securing the Ivy League championship, the program’s second in a six-year span.

Read more

Yale all-time moment No. 6: James Jones takes over as head coach

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears:

Yale had suffered seven straight losing seasons, including a 4-22 finish in 1998-99, when it hired James Jones as its head coach on April 27, 1999. Things got better quickly.

Jones, a former Yale assistant coach (1995-97), led the Elis to a share of the Ivy title in 2002, though Penn would trump Yale in the league playoff game for a NCAA Tournament berth.

Yale has finished in the top half of the conference every season without fail since 2000. True, no NCAA Tournament appearances in that span (though a share of the title this season brought Yale as close as it could possibly get without getting over that hump), but still incredible consistency for a program that lacked it for decades before his arrival.

Yale all-time moment No. 7: Knocking off the national champ

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears, who had 12 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks in our next all-time moment…

On Nov. 30, 2014, Yale did something it hadn’t done before: Defeat a defending national champion. And it did so in the most dramatic way possible.

Read more

Yale all-time moment No. 8: Elis tie Bill Bradley and company

by

We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears.

The 1962-63 Yale Bulldogs were solid.

Fresh off a NCAA Tournament appearance the previous year and led by legend Rick Kaminsky, the Elis finished 13-10, and more importantly, 11-3 in Ivy play, including a 62-61 win at Jadwin Gym (capping a four-game win streak over Princeton).

The first-year varsity star Bill Bradley-led Tigers had their revenge, though, nipping the Elis, 61-58, in New Haven on Feb. 9 and again in the Ivy playoff game on March 9, 65-53. Thus the 1962-63 season marked the first non-NCAA Tournament season in a 53-season streak that is still running. Still, the 1963 Elis won a share of the Ivy League championship and cemented their place in Ivy history.