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When a team loses arguably two of the top 10 players in its basketball history in John Poulakidas and Bez Mbeng, it is tough to believe that it would be the overwhelming favorite to win the Ivy League.
But don’t tell that to James Jones. You see, Yale merely reloads each season.
John Poulakidas is back on the market. The Los Angeles Clippers are moving on from the former Yale sharpshooter after signing him to an Exhibit 10 contract just last month. According to multiple outlets, Poulakidas’ roster spot in L.A. is set to be filled by former Kentucky Wildcat TyTy Washington Jr.
Despite not being picked in the 2025 NBA Draft, Poulakidas suited up for the Clippers’ Summer League squad but was never able to find his groove. He finished 3-for-23 from the field and 1-for-15 from three-point range in five games. Back in May, Poulakidas was one of 45 college players invited to the NBA G League Elite Camp.
Yale doesn’t rebuild. It reloads.
It is trite but true. Yale and Princeton have been the premier Ivy programs since 2015. But it looks as if Yale will hold that mantle this year, as it has the last two regular seasons.
Incoming frosh will be vastly better than their recruiting rankings, and sophomores will become contributors and then ultimately stars. It always happens for Yale.
The Yale women’s basketball team took a cultural and basketball trip to Barcelona, Spain and Nice, France last week.
The Bulldogs likely were more successful with the cultural activities, dropping both games played.
At the Spokane Hoopfest, home to the world’s largest 3X3 basketball tournament, seven former Ivy League women’s basketball stars will lace up their sneakers this weekend alongside 25 other elite hoopsters from across the globe in a center court showcase staged by the 3X3 Basketball Association.
Blake Dietrick and Carlie Littlefield (Princeton), Harmoni Turner and McKenzie Forbes (Harvard), Camille Zimmerman and Hannah Pratt (Columbia), and Roxy Barahman (Yale) have signed up to play on the 3XBA tour this summer, with the Spokane Hoopfest as the opening stop.
An eighth Ivy alumnus, Kaitlyn Chen, had signed up to play in Spokane as well, but the former Princeton star and recently crowned national champion at UConn pulled out of the 3XBA tour after she was offered a contract to play for the WNBA’s Golden State Valkyries.
In April, the Valkyries selected Chen early in the third round of the WNBA Draft, only to waive her a few weeks later during training camp. Ditto for Harvard’s Turner, who was also drafted in the third round by the Las Vegas Aces and later waived.
Other WNBA Draft picks failed to earn roster spots this spring as well, and many of those players have now found an opportunity to continue developing their professional basketball careers by signing on to join the 3XBA tour.
The 3xBA describes itself as “the premier professional women’s FIBA 3X3 tour and youth development pipeline in the United States.” Part of its mission is to provide an outlet for standouts like Chen and Turner, who didn’t quite make the cut in their first attempts, to land a roster spot in the WNBA.
“The idea, is that young players, the bubble players, who maybe are the 13th and 14th kids who would make a WNBA roster if we had that many spots, can come and play 3X3 and potentially end up on a USA national team or make money, have a livelihood during the summer, and then go and play their five-on-five season overseas if they want to, in the fall and spring,” Blake Dietrick told Ivy Hoops Online.
The golden era of Yale men’s basketball has taken place over the last decade under the tutelage of longtime head coach James Jones.
Playing no small part in such excellence has been associate head coach Justin Simon, who was named the head coach at Division III Carnegie Mellon University Wednesday.
“I am really fortunate to have been surrounded by so many extraordinary people during my tenure at Yale,” Simon said.
All good things must come to an end.
So it went for No. 13 Yale men’s basketball in its 80-71 loss to No. 4 Texas A&M in the NCAA Tournament Round of 64 Thursday night in Denver.
Junior forward Pharrel Payne had a career-high 25 points and added 10 rebounds for the Aggies.
A 1:43 sequence at the end of the first half epitomized Yale’s night in its third NCAA Tournament berth in four years.
The Bulldogs were struggling offensively and had no points from the Ivy Player of the Year, senior guard Bez Mbeng, yet were down only 35-29.
Aggies junior forward Solomon Washington was whistled for a flagrant foul off of a rebound.
Mbeng missed both free throws. Yale (22-8) did not convert on the free possession and then turned the ball over.
“In terms of our team, I couldn’t be prouder of our effort today,” Yale coach James Jones said. “It wasn’t our best performance.”
The Ivy League’s men’s and women’s NCAA Tournament representatives are set, with a record-high four of them thanks to #3bidivy achieved on the women’s side:
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Faced with a 16-point deficit early in the second half against the conference’s best team, Cornell staged a furious rally to get within a single possession on several occasions. But Yale always found a way to hold on and came away with a hard-fought 90-84 win to claim the 2025 men’s Ivy League Tournament championship.
“You know, it’s a hard game between us and Cornell, what you might expect playing the team a third time,” Jones told the media after the award ceremony. “I thought our guys battled and played really tough.”
Celebrating on the floor of Brown’s Pizzitola Sports Center, the Bulldogs (22-7) hoisted their second straight Ivy League Tournament trophy and fourth overall. James Jones’ squad, the first to win the conference tournament as the top seed since Princeton did it in 2017, will wait a few hours to hear its name called for next week’s NCAA Tournament.
“A tough game, obviously, Yale is really hard to beat, as someone in the tournament is going to find out in a week, Cornell coach Jon Jaques told the media immediately after the game. “You know, I thought we gave him a really good punch.”
Lots of alumni, former players and others from the basketball world at the Pizzitola Sports Center for the second day of the Ivy League Tournament Saturday.
Seated in row one were Harvard’s Ivy Rookie of the Year Robert Hinton, his mother, and his father Robert, a former Princeton quarterback in the 1970s. The Hintons sat through both men’s games to cheer on Princeton and also Cornell, where the Harvard standout’s brother Adam is a strong contributor.
Hinton will definitely be back at Harvard next season in this age of NIL and player poaching.
Robert was the No. 97 recruit in the class of 2024 and verbally committed to Harvard in his sophomore year at Harvard-Westlake. His finalists were Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
Former Yale players Steve Leondis, Chris Dudley, Azar Swain, Matt Minoff and Mike Williams were in attendance to cheer on the Bulldogs, as was former Yale president Peter Salovey.
Bill Kingston, former Princeton guard on the 1965 Final Four team and Bill Bradley’s roommate, was seated in the second row.
For the second consecutive year, the Legends of Ivy Basketball remained on hiatus, with hopes that the ceremony will resume in 2026 at Cornell.
Many writers, Ivy officials and former players offered varied explanations of the 2.9 seconds which were “added” to the clock at the end of the Princeton-Yale game. The supervisor of officials said that the clock did not appropriately stop after John Poulakidas hit his trey to seal the victory. Others differed.
The coaching changes at Columbia and Penn were also a subject of much media and Ivy administrators. There was a consensus that Penn alum and NYU coach Dave Klatsky will be in play at both schools. Also, there were rumblings that Colgate coach and former Penn player Matt Langel might have interest in the Penn vacancy. Some Princeton and Yale assistants were also discussed as possible Columbia hires. Columbia athletic director Peter Pilling was mum on topic but did add, perhaps in jest, that he had his phone turned off during the Ivy tourney.
Some media grumbled about the Ivy clearing out the gym in between all games and opined that with a potential paucity of attendees at Cornell next year, the league should rethink that policy – one not in place at the Big East or the ACC tourneys.