Home of the Roundball Poets
Richard Kent 
Yale completed its revenge tour of teams against defeated the Bulldogs earlier in the season with a decisive 76-58 win over Cornell at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday.
And oh, what a Senior Night it was for senior forward EJ Jarvis.
Yale sophomore guard Bez Mbeng leads his team in assists at 4.1 per game and in steals with a total of 36. The 6-foot-4 Potomac, Md. native who coach James Jones told Ivy Hoops Online is the best on-ball defender he’s ever coached. IHO caught up with Mbeng for an interview in advance of Yale’s game against Cornell Saturday night:
Princeton led Yale 61-42 with 8:29 remaining in the game at Jadwin Gym Saturday night. The Bulldogs were missing leading scorer Matt Knowling with an ankle injury suffered the night before.
And yet Princeton could not finish at home to maintain sole possession of first place atop the Ivy League standings. In an instant classic, Yale completed a comeback neither program will soon forget to top the Tigers, 93-83, in overtime.
Yale, Princeton and Penn now share first place in the Ivy at 8-4 in league play.
It had all started so well for the hosts.
A key injury spelled doom for Yale at the Palestra in a 66-64 loss to Penn Friday.
With 18 minutes left in the game and the score knotted at 33-33, Yale leading scorer Matt Knowling rolled his ankle. He would not return to the game and his status for tonight against Princeton is questionable.
Penn hung on in a defensive struggle featuring 14 lead changes in which Yale converted just three field goals in the final 5:26. The visitors’ fate was sealed when a fallaway shot landed off base after Yale got the ball back down two with 5.1 seconds left following a 1-for-2 trip to the foul line by Ivy League free-throw percentage leader Clark Slajchert.
Revenge was certainly on the docket for Yale when it hosted Columbia at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday.
The Lions had upset Yale 62-60 on New Year’s Eve at Levien Gym in what remains their only Ivy win. Yale returned the favor Saturday with a resounding 99-68 win.
“We certainly wanted to avenge the loss,” Yale coach James Jones said. “I told them that I didn’t have to motivate them.”
Yale women’s basketball gave up 97 points to high-octane Columbia when the teams met at John J. Lee Amphitheater on New Year’s Eve.
So giving up 74 points to the Lions showed a modicum of progress for the Bulldogs at Levien Gym Saturday.
The problem was that Columbia stymied Yale’s offense in a 74-46 clinic controlled by the home team.
The defense led the way.
That was Yale coach James Jones’ observation about how his Bulldogs engineered a 72-53 win at Dartmouth Saturday to even the season series and stay within a game of Princeton in the Ivy League title chase.
“[W]e were able to put some stops together to end the first half, which gave us momentum coming out of halftime,” Jones said. “Outside of a five-minute stretch offensively in the first half, we played perfectly.”
Yale men’s basketball picked up where its scorching hot hands left off last Saturday against Princeton, building a 19-point second-half lead and surviving a late comeback rush from Harvard to notch a 68-57 win at Lavietes Pavilion.
Harvard (12-10, 3-5 Ivy) had trailed 48-29 with 16:25 remaining but in the next 14 minutes of game seized enough momentum to trail by just five points, 62-57. Yale salted away the game from the free-throw line in the final minute after a defensive clampdown.
A few things had to go well for Yale to beat Penn last night at John J. Lee Amphitheater and keep its Ivy League title hopes alive.
They did.
Sophomore guard Bez Mbeng played lockdown defense on Penn’s dynamic Jordan Dingle in the second half, holding him to nine points after intermission en route to Yale’s 70-63 win over Penn.
”I love guarding the best player on the other team,” Mbeng said.
”Bez is the best on-ball defender I’ve ever coached,” Yale coach James Jones said, offering high praise in his 24th year at the Bulldogs’ helm after coaching other standout defenders like Trey Phills and Jalen Gabbidon. “He did a fantastic job in the second half on the league’s best offensive player and one of the best in the nation.”
Few Ivy observers would have been surprised after the 2021-22 season to see Yale women’s basketball perched near the top of the Ivy League standings in 2022-23. After all, unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection Camilla Emsbo, the league’s most dominant center, would be returning for her senior season.
Then came the summer announcement that Emsbo would miss the entire season due to injury.
But Yale has persevered under first-year coach Dalila Eshe and kept its momentum going with a 72-59 victory at Brown Monday afternoon.