Yale

Yale men lose Knowling and tight defensive battle at Penn, 66-64

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Yale lost Matt Knowling to injury in its 66-64 defeat versus Penn at the Palestra Friday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

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.

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Ivy women’s week seven roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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Following Saturday afternoon’s action, the upper division pulled away from the bottom half, while the Brown rebuild took a positive step forward.

Columbia bounced back from a disappointing result against Princeton by taking it out on Yale in front of 1,485 fans at Levien Gymnasium.  The Lions jumped out to a 32-17 halftime lead on the strength of a 14-0 second quarter run.  The Light Blue made it a 20-point game after three and widen it to a game-high 28 points with just under four minutes to go in the contest.  Defensively, they limited the Bulldogs to 32% shooting and only 49 points, the first time they held an Ivy opponent under 50 this season.

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Ivy men’s week seven roundup: Ancient Eight’s top 10

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Week seven for the Ancient Eight saw Yale avenge its shocking opening day loss at Columbia and move into a tie at the top of the conference leaderboard.  After a close half that saw the Bulldogs holding onto a slim 31-26 lead, the Bulldogs outscored the last-place Lions 58-32 for the dominant 31-point win.  Yale, winners of six straight, had 13 different players in the scoring column and shot 65% from the field. 

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Columbia women shut down Yale, 74-46

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 Columbia junior guard Abbey Hsu led all scorers with 19 points in the Lions’ 74-46 win over Yale at Levien Gym Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

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.

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Ivy women’s week six roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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On Friday night, league-leading Columbia continued its “Revenge Tour” by dominating Penn by 22 points at Levien Gymnasium, avenging a surprise four-point loss to the Quakers on January 7.  The Crimson also had payback on their minds, as they traveled down to New Haven to take on a Yale team that defeated them 71-70 in overtime on that same January day.  Harvard’s defense took control over the opening 20 minutes, limiting the Elis to 19% (0% from three) from the field and opening up a 33-13 halftime lead that the visitors could not overcome.  

Meanwhile, Princeton, which entered the weekend tied for second with Penn and Harvard, rattled off a 17-5 run over a six-minute stretch of the third quarter to ring up a double-digit victory over Cornell.  In the night’s remaining contest, Brown swept the season series over Dartmouth on the strength of 10 three-pointers.

The Big Red suffered another big third-quarter run, giving up 17 straight points to the Quakers on Saturday, as Penn took the second half of their Empire State weekend. Harvard methodically built a 26-point fourth-quarter lead and ended up winning by 13 at Brown. The victory gave the Crimson a season sweep over the Bears and was the team’s fifth in a row.

Down three at the half, Yale outscored Dartmouth 28-17 in the third quarter to lead the Bulldogs to a 13-point win.  While Yale’s season sweep of the Big Green and weekend split keeps it in the hunt for a slot in the Ivy Tournament, Dartmouth’s 14th straight loss keeps them winless in Ivy action and eliminates it from postseason play.

Like last February, the Lions and Tigers faced off in front of a boisterous capacity crowd at Levien Gymnasium with first place on the line.  And just like a year ago, Princeton controlled the game from the very beginning, quickly taking the students out of the contest and running away with a commanding 18-point victory. 

The Tigers’ eighth win in a row was the first their first taste of Ivy revenge in the Carla Berube era, rebounding from an 58-55 defeat at home in early January.  

With nine league games in the book, Princeton, Columbia and Harvard sit atop the standings, while Penn is one game back in fourth and Yale is two games behind. 

While the preseason favorite Tigers and Lions split their season series, the commanding nature of Princeton’s road win, the reemergence of the team’s offense and the presence of the Ivy League Tournament at Jadwin Gymnasium seems to put the Orange & Black in the driver’s seat for the league’s automatic bid.

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Ivy men’s week six roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top Ten

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The opening games of the second half of the Ivy slate ended with sweeps by Princeton, Yale, Penn and Brown.  The Ps did their traditional double wins from home, while the New Englanders were able to earn their victories on the road.

On Friday, the Tigers welcomed Cornell to Jadwin Gymnasium in a match between the league’s top two teams.  Prior to the start of the contest, Princeton honored its championship teams from 1996 to 1998, which included Tigers head coach Mitch Henderson and Big Red coach Brian Earl.   The Orange & Black overcame a 13-point second half deficit to claim sole possession of first place.  The win gave Henderson his 200th career victory. 

A day later, the Tigers gave Henderson win number 201 with a comfortable 22-point victory over Columbia, the last-place team in the Ancient Eight.

Yale showed it has completely rebounded from its opening losses to Columbia and Dartmouth by extending its winning streak to five. 

The Bulldogs were hot on the offensive side in the first half at Harvard, opening up a 17-point halftime lead.  The Crimson tightened the defense in the second half and cut the lead to five with 2:25 to go in regulation, but a 0-for-6 effort the rest of the way ultimately doomed Harvard.  With the victory, the Bulldogs completed their second straight season sweep of their Boston rivals.

At Leede Arena, Yale used a 13-0 run to close out the first half and take an 11-point lead into the locker room.  The visitors never let the Big Green get closer than 10 and cruised to a 19-point revenge win that gave them sole possession of second place.

Against Columbia on Friday night, Penn took an 18-point advantage at the 13:15 mark of the second half, but the Lions clawed their way back and made it a five-point contest with two minutes on the clock.  Similar to Harvard against Yale, Columbia closed the game 1-for-6 and the Quakers came away winning by nine.

Saturday’s matchup between Penn and Cornell was an offensive slugfest with 10 lead changes over the first 30 minutes of action.  The Quakers eventually opened up a nine-point lead with 7:19 to go and held on against the never-say-die Big Red.  The win, which split the season series, gave Penn its fourth in a row and its 46th all-time sweep of the Empire Ivies.

The Big Red, meanwhile, dropped from the top of the leaderboard to a tie for third after the lost weekend.

In Friday’s game in Hanover, Brown tied a season high with 13-made three-pointers on their way to a season sweep of Dartmouth.  Although limited to 24% shooting in the opening half, the Big Green got within seven points with 9:25 left in the contest.  The Bears used a 10-2 run over the next four minutes to put the game away.

After four ties and five lead changes in a close contest between Brown and Harvard, Bruno used a 16-zero run to open up a 15-point lead almost halfway through the second half.   For the second straight night, the Crimson battled back, eventually making it a two-point game with six seconds remaining.  Brown made one of two free throws and the home team couldn’t convert the game-tying three-pointer at the buzzer.

Bruno’s win was the 133rd victory of head coach Mike Martin’s career, tying him for the program lead with Stanley Ward.  It also avenged a 70-68 overtime loss to Harvard at the Pizzitola Center on January 6 and put the team in a three-way tie for third place with Cornell and Penn.

By late Saturday night, Dartmouth dropped to sole possession of sixth place, while Harvard, losers of three straight was alone in seventh.

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Stingy defense powers Yale men to win at Dartmouth

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Sophomore guard Bez Mbeng has stood out as an on-ball defender for Yale, whose defense stood tall in a 72-53 win at Dartmouth Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

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.”

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Yale men hold off Harvard to sweep season series again

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Junior forward Matt Knowling led all scorers with 18 points on 9-for-13 shooting in 35 minutes in Yale’s win over Harvard Friday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

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.

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Is Princeton men’s basketball poised to repeat as Ivy League champions?

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Having reigning Ivy Player of the Year Tosan Evbuomwan should help Princeton down the stretch of the Ivy League title race. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

At the midpoint of the Ivy League season, the Princeton men’s basketball team sits in a familiar position:  tied for first place in a crowded field of evenly matched teams. At 5-2 in conference play, the Tigers are tied atop the league standings with their new rival, the Cornell Big Red. Lurking not far behind is an upsurging Dartmouth team and resurging Yale squad each at 4-3, while three other teams – Brown, Harvard and Penn – remain within striking distance with a record of 3-4.  Only one team in the Ancient Eight – Columbia – appears to be out of the running with a conference record of 1-6.  

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Ivy women’s week five roundup: Ancient Eight’s Top 10

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As the opening half of the conference schedule came to a close on Saturday, Columbia used a dominant performance over last-place Dartmouth to claim sole possession of first place.  Penn, which entered the weekend tied with the Lions, fell from the top slot after giving up a season-high 84 points during a lopsided 24-point defeat at Harvard.  Princeton, which started out tied with Harvard and Yale, used a masterful defensive performance to beat Yale by 49 points and keep pace with the Crimson.  In Saturday’s Ivy opening game, Cornell used a 10-1 run early in the fourth quarter to pull away from Brown and get the league’s only road win. 

Saturday results
Cornell over Brown, 66-61
Princeton over Yale, 79-30
Columbia over Dartmouth, 79-50
Harvard over Penn, 84-60

Standings 
Columbia 6-1 (17-3 overall)
Princeton 5-2 (14-5)
Penn 5-2 (13-7)
Harvard 5-2 (12-7)
Yale 4-3 (10-10)
Cornell 2-5 (9-11)
Brown 1-6 (8-11)
Dartmouth 0-7 (2-19)

As the second half of the Ivy schedule begins this weekend, all eyes will focus on Levien Gymnasium as Columbia welcomes the Ps to NYC.  The league leaders will look for payback on Friday night against the Quakers, who pulled away late in the fourth quarter at home against the Lions on January 7.  On Saturday, Columbia, which beat Princeton by three in an overtime thriller on January 6, will try to make it two in a row against four-time defending champs.  The Tigers haven’t been swept by an Ivy opponent since losing to Penn three times in 2017, but the dreaded Friday night bus trip from Ithaca to Manhattan and a start time 20 hours after finishing the game at Cornell will certainly pose added challenges.

Fri., Feb. 3
Princeton at Cornell, 6:00 p.m.
Harvard at Yale, 6:00 p.m.
Penn at Columbia, 6:00 p.m.
Dartmouth at Brown, 7:00 p.m.

Sat., Feb. 4
Penn at Cornell, 4:00 p.m.
Princeton at Columbia, 4:00 p.m.
Dartmouth at Yale, 4:00 p.m.
Harvard at Brown, 5:00 p.m.

Below are 10 of the top performances from the weekend:

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