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Richard Kent Yale men’s basketball had that California feeling Saturday night at Santa Clara.
The team came away with a strong 66-58 road win at Leavey Center over the Broncos in perhaps the Bulldogs’ best defensive performance of the 2023-24 campaign.
Yale coach James Jones called it a “tremendous effort, probably our most complete game of the season.”
The Yale women’s basketball team returned five players who scored 10 or more points in a game last season, along with its top four scorers and rebounders. There was reason for optimism coming off of a 13-14 season which included 7-7 in Ivy play.
But the Bulldogs have opened up the season 3-10.
Even so, Yale’s on a one-game winning streak after finally putting together 40 minutes of solid basketball Saturday at John J. Lee Amphitheater with a 72-48 wire-to-wire win over in-state rival Quinnipiac.
No. 2 Kansas beat Yale, 75-60, at fabled Allen Fieldhouse Friday night, but that hardly tells the story of the game.
Everything that starts well does not always end well.
That was the story for Yale women’s basketball at John J. Lee Amphitheater Thursday in a rare noon game against St. John’s of the Big East.
Xaivian Lee is a 6-foot-3 sophomore guard at Princeton from Toronto who did his prep years at the Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, Pa. Lee recently sat down with Ivy Hoops Online for an interview at Jadwin Gym:
Yale men’s basketball has not been a second-half team this season, but that changed at the M&T Bank Arena in Hamden, Conn., Monday night as the Bulldogs used a 17-2 second-half run to fuel a 73-66 win at Quinnipiac.
There is no denying that Yale men’s basketball has tremendous talent. From the one through eight slots, Yale may have the best talent in the Ivy League.
But there is also no denying that another adjective applies to the Bulldogs. Coach James Jones used that word very pointedly in his postgame comments after a 75-71 loss to Fairfield at John J. Lee Amphitheater Wednesday night.
Yale had a 5 point lead on Vermont with 3.8 seconds left. They lost. Here’s how. Absolute insanity. pic.twitter.com/52z3UiOklb
— Mike McAllister (@McAllisterMike1) December 3, 2023
Yale men’s basketball snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in stunning fashion at Vermont Saturday night, suffering a 66-65 loss after having led 65-62 with six-tenths of a second left to play.
Then madness ensued.
It was the Nick Townsend show at John J. Lee Amphitheater Wednesday night, as the sophomore forward posted a career-high 22 points and 15 rebounds to lead Yale men’s basketball to a 79-71 win over Stony Brook (2-4), in a rare out-of-conference home game.
Yale (5-3) trailed 29-28 with less than five minutes to play in the first half but were kept in the game up to that point in part by a burst of offense from junior guard Bez Mbeng (10 points) before charging ahead to grab a 41-35 halftime lead. Yale was outrebounded 18-17 at the half after being decimated on the boards in a loss at Rhode Island Sunday.
Yale men’s basketball held a 12-point halftime lead at Rhode Island after having led by as many as 18 points in the first half.
And then Yale’s wheels fell off.