Season in Review: Yale Bulldogs

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Yale fans rushed the court when the Bulldogs knocked off league leader and archrival, Harvard, on Senior Night last year. (Photo Credit: Yale Daily News)

This is the second piece in a series looking back at how each Ivy League squad fared during the 2010-11 season. The Yale Bulldogs ended the year at 15-13 (8-6), finishing third in the conference.

The Yale Bulldogs entered the 2010-2011 campaign with some serious question marks needing to be answered, as they lost their leading scorer Alex Zampier as well as 6’ 10” center Paul Nelson to graduation. To make matters worse, starting forward Mike Sands withdrew from school for personal reasons the day before the season, leaving serious doubt about how this team would be able to compete down low.  Some younger players were going to need to step up for this team to finish in the top half of the Ancient Eight.

Almost immediately, Yale made headlines in the non-conference season. After starting the season with a loss to Quinnipiac, the Bulldogs put up a scrappy effort in a narrow 58-55 defeat against Big East foe, Providence. In their next game, Yale continued the Ivy League’s dominance over the ACC’s Boston College thanks to a breakout performance from sophomore guard Austin Morgan, who exploded for 25 points, including six 3-pointers, to key the upset road win for Yale. In non-league play against other major conference opponents, Yale lost games to Stanford from the Pac-10 (now Pac-12) and Illinois from the Big-10.

The Bulldogs started out Ivy play with two wins over Brown, but quickly had their chances at competing for the Ivy title effectively end the next weekend, getting swept by Princeton and Penn on the road.  Both were competitive games, but they left Yale two games behind Princeton and Harvard, and since the Ancient Eight does not employ a conference tournament, the Bulldogs were all but eliminated from league title consideration. As the league quickly became a race for 3rd, the Bulldogs won three of their next four before getting swept again by Penn and Princeton, as they remained clumped with multiple teams in the league’s second tier, while Harvard and Princeton sprinted away from the pack.

The rest of Yale’s conference season was not without multiple barnburners. The Elis lost to Penn in New Haven on a Zack Rosen jump shot with just two seconds left. A week later though, in their most complete effort of the year, the Bulldogs upset Harvard on Senior Night, 70-69, erasing a six point deficit in the final six minutes to pull out an emotional one point win at John J. Lee.  In the season’s final weekend, the Bulldogs had a twelve point lead late against Columbia, but Brian Barbour caught fire, scoring thirteen points in the last four minutes to key a Lions run and send the game into overtime.  The Bulldogs pushed back though, and pulled out the 87-81 victory after two bonus periods. Amazingly, not until the final game of the year, a thirteen point loss to Cornell, did the Bulldogs play a league game decided by double digits.

Austin Morgan was one of a handful of nice surprises for the Bulldogs last year. Other major contributors included junior Reggie Willhite, who worked his way into the starting lineup and averaged nearly ten points per game after rarely seeing the floor his previous two years.  Freshman Jeremiah Kreisberg started for much of the year at center, helping replace some of the frontcourt minutes vacated by the loss of Sands and Nelson.  Kreisberg averaged 7.2 points per game and ripped down 4.5 boards per game.

However, the biggest impact came from Greg Mangano, a first-team All Ivy selection whose play last year earned him Lindy’s preseason pick for the 2011-12 Ivy Player of the Year. Mangano was a force all season on the glass, averaging 10.0 rebounds and 3.0 blocks per game. He kicked off the conference slate with a monster 23 and 17 in Providence and followed it up with a 17 point, 12 rebound, 7 block masterpiece in leading the Bulldogs to two early season victories. After declaring for the NBA draft in the offseason (and then retracting his name), Mangano was selected for the U.S. World University Games team, playing with some of college basketball’s big names, including Syracuse’s Scoop Jardine, Kentucky’s Darius Miller and current Purdue coach Matt Painter. Mangano was the only Ivy League player selected for the squad.

Mangano, Morgan, Kreisberg and Co. helped the Bulldogs finish alone in 3rd place at 8-6, having swept Brown, Columbia, and Dartmouth, split with Harvard and Cornell, and been swept by Princeton and Penn. The Bulldogs went 1-3 against co-champions Princeton and Harvard, losing the three games by a combined fourteen points and stunning Harvard on Senior Night in New Haven, dealing their archrivals their second loss and forcing them to have to beat Princeton twice to make the NCAA tournament.

Ivy League POY Keith Wright among Wooden Award Preseason Top 50

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Harvard's Keith Wright was honored as a Wooden Award Preseason nominee. (Photo Credit: gocrimson.com)

Reigning Ivy League Player of the Year Keith Wright added another honor to his resume on Monday when he was included on the Wooden Award Preseason Top 50 list. The Wooden Award is given to the nation’s most outstanding basketball player who also maintains a minimum 2.0 GPA and demonstrates strength of character both on and off the court.

Wright acknowledged the recognition in a tweet earlier today, “Truly honored & blessed to be on such a prestigious list w/ so many talented players. Wouldn’t be there without my teammates & the man above.” He was the only Ivy League player to make the list.

Looking ahead, the Preseason Top 50 list will be whittled down to 20 student-athletes by college basketball media members around midseason. Those voters will mark their ballots, and choose the Top 10, who will then be named to the Wooden All-American team during the weekend of the Elite Eight in March.

Over-Unders on Season Projections

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I recently read a great statistical preview of the upcoming season on . Definitely check it out for an interesting read. Essentially, using some Pomeroy-level formulas, which I am going to take at face-value, the mastermind behind T14GT generated some very intriguing numbers and projections based on player-level and team-level statistics from past seasons. The resulting formulas generated the following projected win totals for 2011-2012:

“1. Harvard – 12.0
2. Yale – 8.5
3. Princeton – 8.4
4. Penn – 6.8
5. Cornell – 6.3
6. Columbia – 5.6
7. Brown – 5.5
8. Dartmouth – 2.8″

My initial reaction to these standings is that the order seems to generally fall in line with how I see this season proceeding. Nevertheless, I wanted to chime in with some quick thoughts on the projections and where I see things playing out differently since it”s tough to quantify the impact that a great recruiting class or a departing coach might have on a team. I”ll take the above projections to be each team”s season win total over/under and go team-by-team with my picks.

Harvard- 12.0 wins (IHO says: right on) Harvard is everyone”s runaway favorite and rightfully so, given that they return everyone and add the league”s best recruiting class. Not much to argue with there.

Yale- 8.5 wins (IHO says: over) This Yale team is set to turn some heads this year. I was excited to see the projections backing up what I”ve seen on the court; this team may be the only squad capable of taking down the Crimson this year. We saw last year how evenly these teams matched up and how seriously they take the rivalry in two classic battles. Both home teams narrowly prevailed in “10-“11 and we can expect the same type of thrilling contests this year, as Yale has added some serious height in their incoming freshman class (6″11″ Will Childs-Klein, 6″7″ Matt Townsend, and 6″ 7” name-of-the-year candidate Armani Cotton) to back up Mangano and Kreisberg. This year though, if we”re lucky, the winner of The (Basketball) Game may also determine the league champion.

Princeton- 8.4 wins (IHO says: under) Princeton clocks in with between 8 and 9 wins in this projection, good for third in the league, I don”t see them putting it all together that quickly. Losing Mavraides and Maddox is a big blow for the defending champs, but losing a head coach is devastating. It takes more than a summer for a head coach to lay down his system, and I just can”t see the Tigers responding this quickly with a top 2 or 3 finish. Not saying it”s impossible, but in a league that relies heavily on good coaching and scheming, it would be a remarkable accomplishment for Princeton to compete for a league title again this year. I have them landing in the middle of the pack with a .500 record.

Penn- 6.8 wins (IHO says: over) Penn is a team with a void to fill with the departure of Jack Eggleston. Despite that, the trio of Miles Cartwright, Zack Rosen, and Tyler Bernardini will see how far they can lead this year”s Penn team. Those three players combine to make up as good a backcourt as you”ll find in the Ivy League this year, but they can”t do it alone. It”ll be very interesting to see how quickly Penn can bring their front-court up to speed. The Quakers might be able to get away with their lack of depth on the offensive end, but established big men like Mangano and Wright are surely licking their chops looking at the freshmen and bench players they”ll be matched up with against Penn. Still, IHO thinks the terrific trio of guards will be enough to take down the bottom half of the league and steal a game or two against the big boys.

Cornell-  6.3 wins (IHO says: under)  Chris Wroblewski put the Big Red on his back last year, shooting the lights out and leading Cornell to a respectable finish in the middle of the pack, one year removed from the team”s legendary Sweet 16 run. Consider that Cornell had an unbelievable 13 players make at least one start last year, and you”ll realize that this is a team that is still figuring out its identity. We know they can shoot the ball, but there are too many question marks to think they can contend with the top echelon this year. IHO wants to see how the Big Red freshman class fares in non-conference play before committing to a number, but for now, we think Cornell has a lot to prove.

Columbia- 5.6 wins (IHO says: under) As is often the case in this league, the lack of an effective big man presence inside will leave Columbia relying on their guard play. Last year, Noruwa Agho proved himself as one of the league”s most explosive scorers–though T14GT recently put forth a compelling argument that he may be the . Brian Barbour”s quickness on the ball will be helpful and his 2:1 assist to turnover ratio is impressive, but it won”t result in many points unless the Lions have added a few knockdown shooters. Last year, Columbia finished dead last in 2-point shooting and 3-point shooting. Besides that, over 72% of their shots last year came from Agho, Ampim and Brian Grimes. Agho found a way to score–albeit by putting up a lot of shots, but Ampim and Grimes clocked in far below average on KenPom”s Offensive Efficiency index. It”s simple: the Lions will need to find a way to get better shots and knock them down if they want to improve upon last year”s finish.

Brown- 5.5 wins (IHO says: over) It might surprise some people, but there”s a lot to be excited about in Providence. The Bears return Rookie of the Year point guard Sean McGonagill who will most likely start alongside transfer Steve Albrecht, who sat out last year after an impressive freshman campaign at Toledo. The Bears also return Tucker Halpern on the wing who showed signs of brilliance last year, including a 29 point performance in a near-upset of Harvard last year. Dockery Walker returns from a great freshman campaign in which he proved he was capable of being a much-needed inside presence, an energy guy, and a monster on the defensive boards. With the addition of a solid freshman class, including Brazilian center 6″9″ Rafael Maia, the Bears have the ability to make the jump into the top half for the first time since the days of Mullery.

Dartmouth- 2.8 wins (IHO says: under) The Big Green have only won two games in the past two years, and they didn”t have a single player average double figures in points per game. That being said, they return Jabari Trotter who shot the ball over 40% from deep last season, as well as R.J. Griffin who put up 20 against Harvard last season. The Big Green will be counting on a solid class of freshmen to step in and contribute immediately if they want to be competitive in the league this year. Their top priority this offseason should be holding onto the ball–Dartmouth doesn”t return a single player with an assist-to-turnover ratio over 1.

Mangano goes for 8 and 8 in blowout of Mexico

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In only 14 minutes, Yale senior big man, Greg Mangano, grabbed eight boards and added eight points on 4-8 shooting in the Americans” 108-67 victory over Mexico in their opening contest of the World University Games in Shenzhen, China. Four of his eight rebounds came on the offensive glass, as the US stretched a six-point halftime lead to a rout, outscoring the Mexicans 65-30 in the second half. USA and Purdue Coach Matt Painter praised the bench in his post-game comments, crediting the Imponerende! Craps pa nettet giver dig ligesom sa mange andre spil en r?kke fordele i forhold til de ”virkelige” er. team”s depth for their second half dominance, “When [Mexico] had to sub, I thought our depth really wore them out because there’s not a lot of difference when we sub. We tried to keep things balanced with the starting five, then the next five, then Ray McCallum and (Greg) Mangano, I thought both those guys did a great job of coming in and giving us some energy. I thought it was a total team effort. That’s something that’s really going to help us, especially in pool play, is using all those guys.” Mangano will next represent the Ivy League when the USA take on Hungary on August 14 at 3:30PM local time in Shenzhen.

 

2011-2012 Season

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As the upcoming Ivy League season approaches, the make-up of the league looks to be unlike anything we’ve seen in years. Last season concluded with Doug Davis’ leaner sending the Tigers back to the tournament in one of the most exciting finishes to a conference season in the history of the Ancient Eight, but that Princeton team that was mobbed by its fans on the neutral floor in New Haven has been shaken up quite a bit since then. Meanwhile, Harvard returns as the prohibitive favorite, with a chip on its shoulder after a hollow share of the league title left them on the outside looking in on Selection Sunday. The Crimson return everyone from their record-setting squad. Dark horses include young squads looking to make the jump in Philadelphia and Providence, as well as a dangerous Yale team led by USA Basketball’s World University Games selection, Greg Mangano. Cornell’s sharpshooters also finished last season on a strong note and hope to carry that momentum into 2011, as they try to quickly rebuild back into a title contender.

In a few weeks, teams will gather in their respective empty, sweltering gymnasiums to restart the long and arduous journey to March. Over the course of the next two months, we will be assessing each team’s chances at winning the 14-game tournament better known as the Ivy League championship. We’ll break it down by position and analyze the newcomers. We’ll check out the non-conference schedules and get reports from the campuses. At the end of the summer, we’ll be putting it all together in the form of season previews and predictions. There’s a lot to look forward to around here, so be sure to check back soon.