The Yale women’s basketball team somehow survived and advanced in an instant classic in the WBI semifinal against visiting South Alabama, roaring back from 11 points down with under two minutes to go to pull off a stunning comeback 76-74 win in overtime.
found itself home for the first time in twenty eight days, but could not find its shooting touch until the game’s sixteenth minute. By that time, the Bulldogs (18-13) were 1 for their first 25 and down 19 to the visiting Jaguars of South Alabama from the Sun Belt conference (21-13). The Elis then went on a 11-2 run to close out the first half down only 29-19.
The Yale women (17-13) visited Binghamton (20-12) in the second round of the Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI), and held on for a 70-64 victory to move into the tournament semifinal. With the victory, the Bulldogs earned their second-ever postseason win and tied a program record for number of wins in a season. They are now set to face South Alabama at the John J. Lee Amphitheater on Saturday afternoon at 5:00 p.m. on the Ivy League Network.
With the score tied at eight, four minutes into the game, the Elis broke things open with a 16-2 run over the next 8:10. They extended the lead to a high of 19 late in the second quarter before closing out the half with a 17-point lead over the Bearcats. With Jen Berkowitz limited to 11 minutes due to foul trouble, junior forward Alexandra Maund put up six points (3-for-3 shooting) and six rebounds against Alyssa James, the three-time America East Defensive Player of the Year. First-year guard Tori Andrews, who missed the team’s December game against Binghamton due to an injury, came off the bench and went 3-for-3 from beyond the arc to lead Yale with 10 points.
For the second consecutive year, all four participants in the women’s Ivy Tournament have earned postseason bids. Following top seeded Princeton’s championship victory over second place Penn early Sunday evening, the Tigers clinched the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and Penn claimed the conference’s automatic qualifying spot in the Women’s NIT. On Monday night, Harvard received an at-large bid to the WNIT and Yale was selected for the Women’s Basketball Invitational (WBI).
The Tigers were chosen as the No. 12 seed in the Kansas City regional, where they will face No. 5 Maryland in Raleigh on Friday at noon on ESPN2 and online at ESPN3. For Princeton, this is their ninth straight postseason appearance and seventh trip to the Big Dance. The Quakers will be going up against Albany at the Palestra on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. on the Ivy League Network. Penn is competing in its sixth straight postseason tournament and its second trip to the WNIT. The Crimson will travel to the Bronx on Friday night at 7:00 pm to take on Fordham on the A-10 Network, as they make their 14th overall postseason tournament, eighth all-time WNIT showing and sixth WNIT appearance in the last seven seasons. The Bulldogs will visit Northeastern on Thursday night at 7:00 pm on Northeastern’s NUxtreme. This is the team’s first postseason play under third-year head coach Allison Guth, and the first of any kind since a 2011 WNIT bid.
Here is a short primer on the Ivy representatives’ opponents for this week’s action:
In the teams’ first two matchups, Yale came out of the gate quickly against Princeton, the Ivy League’s regular season champion. Tonight’s 78-57 Princeton win over the Bulldogs was a different story.
The No. 1 Tigers came out playing more aggressively and capitalized on early foul trouble for the Bulldogs’ Roxy Barahman to open up a nine-point first-half lead. No. 4 Yale managed to make it a five-point game with 4:59 to go in the first half, but three consecutive three-pointers from Carlie Littlefield and Tia Weledji upped the lead to 15 and the Tigers eventually went into the locker room up 39-23.
In the latest episode of Inside Ivy Hoops, Jill Glessner and Brett Franklin talk with Yale Athletic Director Tom Beckett and Princeton women’s coach Courtney Banghart while also previewing the final weekend of regular season play on both the men’s and women’s sides.
Examining the men’s side, Brett and Jill recap No. 4 seed tiebreakers and pick favorites to take the No. 4 seed, while Jill highlights what she thinks has been the game of the Ivy season so far:
Tobe Carberry is an assistant men’s basketball coach at Yale, joining the staff in 2017. He was a former star player in high school in New Haven, in college at Vermont and coached both at Central Connecticut State and LIU Brooklyn. Our Richard Kent connected with coach Carberry recently:
Ivy Hoops Online: How does recruiting differ in the Ivy League than your previous stops?
Joined by Yale coach James Jones and Ivy Hoops Online’s Princeton beat writer George Clark, IHO editor Mike Tony fills in for Jill Glessner and Brett Franklin as host of Inside Ivy Hoops this week.
Mike and George look back at the Penn men’s 82-65 rout of the Tigers at Jadwin Gym Tuesday night while considering what to expect from Princeton and Penn on both the men’s and women’s sides down the stretch, touting the strength of Ivy women’s basketball and much more:
Going Inside Ivy Hoops with Brett Franklin and Jill Glessner this week are Ivy Hoops Online writer Richard Kent, Brown women’s basketball assistant coach Tyler Patch and Columbia men’s head coach Jim Engles.
On the women’s side, Jill and Brett highlight Harvard’s home cooking, Penn winning the Big 5, Ivy back-to-backs creeping up on Dartmouth and the intrigue of contrasting styles with Friday’s Penn at Brown matchup. On the men’s side, they consider how many bitterly close losses Dartmouth can continue to swallow, Penn’s formidable frontcourt and more:
IHO’s Yale beat writer Richard Kent joins Brett and Jill on the expert hotline about when he expects Makai Mason to return for Yale, Trey Phills’s standout season, why the Yale men have a better shot at beating Princeton than Penn this weekend, whether the Yale women can claim an Ivy League Tournament berth this season and how Bella Alarie flew under Duke’s recruiting radar:
Tyler Patch discusses his path to becoming an assistant at Brown, the recruiting and execution that created Brown’s high-octane uptempo offense, lessons learned from the Bears’ back-to-back Ivy nail-biter losses last weekend and more.
Jim Engles reflects on his unique time at NJIT, Columbia starting this season with seven road games and Mike Smith’s relationship with NBA player Jimmy Butler while looking ahead to the Lions hosting Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend:
Sharing the Rock, Defensive Rebounding and Two-Point Shooting
Over the previous three seasons, Yale has been in the top 100 for assists. After the first half of the 2017-18 campaign, the Bulldogs are tops in the conference averaging 18.4 assists a game and their 67.2 percent rate is second in the country.
The Elis have a defensive rebounding rate of 73.0 percent, which is fourth in the Ivy League and top 90 nationally. While it may not be as high as the program’s 75.7 percent rate in its historic ‘15-‘16 season (top 10 nationally), it is on pace to be the second-best performance in the last 10 years.
James Jones says his Yale squad has played at a high level in recent games and that Jordan Bruner is “ahead of schedule” in his rehabilitation. (Pitt LiveWire)
Richard Kent of Ivy Hoops Online connected with Yale coach James Jones for insight into how Yale has moved on after losing Jordan Bruner and Makai Mason to injury (the former for the season).
Ivy Hoops Online: Perhaps no coach in the country this season has been forced to employ the next man up strategy as much as you. How difficult has that been? James Jones: We’ve worked hard to get the young players in our program ready so when their number is called they will be ready. This year has been no different, we’re just using more of our bench players than we normally would.
IHO: Your team really seemed to click against Lehigh (in an 86-77 road win). Was that your best performance to date? JJ: Several games this season we’ve been able to play at a high level. I’d say Lehigh (Dec. 6), St Bonaventure (a 75-67 road loss on Dec. 9) and Kennesaw State (an 89-74 road win on Dec. 30) were all played at about the same level.
