Howard

Yale men’s basketball ekes out 86-78 overtime win at Howard

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Junior guard John Poulakidas delivered a season-high 23 points on 8-for-14 shooting to lead Yale to a hard fought 86-78 overtime win at Howard Wednesday.

Yale (9-6) played the game with team scoring and rebounding leader sophomore center Danny Wolf out with an illness.

The Bulldogs squandered a 16-point lead (67-51). A trey by former Harvard nemesis and grad forward Seth Towns, the 2017-18 Ivy Player of the Year, plus a dunk by junior guard Bryce Harris dunk in the last minute of regulation sent the game into overtime.

But the visitors dominated the extra session.

It was a game of runs by both teams.

Yale went on a first-half 11-point run to lead by 17-7, and the Bison answered with their own 7-0 run to knot the score at 20.

Howard (5-10) switched to a 2-3 zone, which flummoxed Yale for portions of the first half.

Yale led 36-31 at the half. Poulakidas posted 16 first-half points.

The Bulldogs were in control for most of the second half until Howard (5-10) went on an 18-4 run to send the game into overtime.

“Great team effort, really rebounded well, which made all the difference in the game,” Yale coach James Jones said.

Yale won the rebounding war, 47-28, hauling in 21 offensive boards that led to 31 second-chance points.

Senior forward Matt Knowling notched 14 points, eight rebounds and five assists, while junior guard Bez Mbeng registered 14 points. Sophomore forward Casey Simmons pitched in with 11 points and a game-high 11 rebounds off the bench.

Nine Yale players logged 10 minutes or more, as Jones is still searching for a rotation for the Ivy slate.

Junior guard Marcus Dockery led Howard with 21 points. Towns contributed 17 points and six rebounds.

Yale opens Ivy play at Brown on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 78-68 win over Howard

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Penn senior guard Clark Slajchert notched 20 points on 6-for-11 shooting, including 6-for-9 from three-point range, in his team’s 78-68 win over Howard Monday night. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn rebounded from Saturday’s loss to Kentucky with one of its cleanest and most efficient performances of the season. The Quakers scored 1.2 points per possession and hit 12 three-pointers in a 78-68 win over Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference favorite Howard at the Palestra.

Penn (7-5) took a series of early punches to the mouth from the Bison. Howard started the game on a 7-0 run and then added a 15-2 flurry midway through the first half to build a 28-17 lead.

Clark Slajchert almost singlehandedly flipped the game around for the Quakers. Slajchert scored all 20 of his points in a stretch that spanned the final eight-plus minutes of the first half and first two minutes of the second half.

The senior put Penn ahead for good with 1:34 to go in the first half when he drained an open three from the right wing through heavy contact from Howard guard Isaiah Warfield during his follow-through. Slajchert finished off the four-point play at the free throw line, then added another three 29 seconds later off a slick feed from freshman Sam Brown.

Penn fans have plenty of happy Quakeaways to hold onto as the team heads into a long layoff for finals, starting with how …

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Ivy hoops roundup – April 10, 2022

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Cannady completing a comeback

Devin Cannady is nearing the end of a 10-day contract with the Orlando Magic that has marked an extraordinary comeback from a devastating injury for the former Princeton standout.

Cannady signed the contract March 31, making the jump from the Lakeland Magic of the NBA G League, where he had been averaging 15.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.9 assists in 16 games and 11 starts.

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Ivy hoops roundup – Transfers uniting and reuniting elsewhere

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The slew of top-flight talent leaving the Ivy League just keep gets bigger.

Together again as Tar Heels   

Princeton women’s senior guard Carlie Littlefield delivered the news on Twitter Monday that she’ll be reuniting with Courtney Banghart, the coach she played for at Princeton as a rookie and sophomore, at North Carolina. An Economics major at Princeton, Littlefield will play at UNC as a graduate transfer and earn a Master of Business Administration degree there.

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Should you root for Harvard?

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Don
Don”t you just love watching Harvard celebrate? Oh right, you probably don”t. (gocrimson.com)

With Harvard set to take on North Carolina Thursday in the Crimson’s fourth straight NCAA tournament appearance, Peter Andrews and I debate whether non-Harvard Ivy hoops fans should root for the Crimson to win their third straight opening NCAA tourney game.

MT: Look, I know you probably hate Harvard. And you have every reason to.

The cheating scandal that forced Kyle Casey and Brandyn Curry to withdraw from the team in 2012-13 only to win another Ivy title the following year.

The loosening of academic standards for basketball players.

The sending of an assistant out on “unethical recruiting trips.”

The way Harvard teases Ivy fans every year by getting entangled in close games against underdog conference competition only to emerge victorious almost every time. (The Crimson have won five straight games this season decided by three points or fewer.)

But Harvard beating UNC wouldn’t be so bad.

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