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Richard Kent 
IHO caught up with Yale coach James Jones after the Bulldogs’ 52-50 loss to Harvard Saturday night, which allowed the Crimson to tie Yale atop the conference standings.
IHO: Did Harvard do anything special to stop [Justin] Sears, who only had nine points?
JJ: Nothing really special, but they did get him out of the box.
IHO: How do you account for a 16-11 halftime score?
JJ: Both teams came out and let the moment get the best of them.
Last year, Yale made the trek to Columbia and got blown out. But that was on a Saturday night, after the long ride back from Cornell.
Justin Sears was far and away the best player on the court, with 28 points, eight rebounds, three blocks, two steals, two assists and zero turnovers, in addition to a game-saving block of an attempted three-pointer by Columbia standout Maodo Lo.
Javier Duren made clutch free throws down the stretch.
Yale got off to a slow start but still led 35-32 at the half. The Elis built a large lead to start the second half, but Columbia fought back with a barrage of threes, to cut the deficit to 58-57. The Lions were unable to take the lead as Yale closed them out from the charity stripe.
Yale made the ride to Cornell last night and Columbia faces a Brown team reeling from a player defection (leading scorer Leland King) and a squandered lead at Cornell.
It is tough to believe that the Elis can run the string undefeated in a very competitive Ivy League.
Since I practice law by day, let”s enter into a few stipulations:
Sure it was close. Dartmouth own the better record at 6-6, but Cornell sits at 6-7, after going 2-26 last year.
Our Richard Kent caught up with Princeton women’s basketball coach Courtney Banghart, who has led the Tigers to the NCAA tournament in four of the last five years, making Princeton the gold standard of women’s hoops in the Ancient Eight during that stretch. While Princeton relinquished the Ivy crown to Penn last year, the Tigers are back with a vengeance so far in 2014-15, currently boasting a 15-0 record with an average margin of 25.5 points per victory. After the jump, check out what Banghart had to say about the prospect of starting up new in-state rivalries with Rutgers and Seton Hall, her team’s recent visit to the White House and much more.
Yale had a Montague, but UConn had no Capulet to defend. And as such, Yale defeated UConn, 45-44, at Gampel Pavilion, in a stunner to most of the 9,538 in attendance.
Jack Montague hit a three-pointer from the left corner with 1.7 remaining on the clock to give Yale the win. Montague was 50-95 in threes entering the game but had not made one against the Huskies. The Elis were only 3-for-21 from three for the game.
If there was any doubt about how good, tough and athletic Yale is, it was answered by the middle of the first half, when the Elis held a 22-9 lead over the defending national champions.
Very few people have had a stronger impact on Princeton basketball than Gary Walters, who served as his alma mater’s athletic director for 20 years before retiring earlier this year and was a point guard for the Tigers from 1964-67. He was starting point guard on Princeton’s 1964-65 Final Four Team, and we caught up with the Ford Family Athletic Director Emeritus to ask him about his memories of that legendary squad for its 50th anniversary.
This is the 50th anniversary of arguably the greatest Ivy League basketball team of all time, the 1964-65 Princeton Tigers.
Princeton was coached by the legendary Butch van Breda Kolff and was led by one of the five greatest players in college basketball history, Bill Bradley, as well as a host of other complementary players.
The Tigers finished the season at 23-6 and 13-1 in the Ivies, suffering only an upset loss on the road to a strong Cornell team. They had a stirring 109-69 NCAA win over No. 4 Providence on the road and finished third in the country with a 118-82 win over Wichita State and future New York Knick Dave Stallworth in a game in which Bradley scored 58 points to set an NCAA tournament record. We will be providing our readers with weekly capsules of significant games in conjunction with interviews with key players on that team.
Stay tuned.
Yale did something this weekend it hasn’t done in years. It won a basketball tournament. The Bulldogs, playing as well as any Ivy team right now, handed the home team, Kent State, its first loss to win the Men Against Breast Cancer Classic.
Yale had defeated Illinois-Chicago, 70-58, and Illinois State, 53-46, to reach the final. It took an heroic performance from senior Matt Townsend, who flew in from New York after being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, to seal the victory. Townsend had 12 points, including the go-ahead basket.