Jack Montague

Ivy Sunday roundup

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Boston College 69, Harvard 56

Free throws. They’re important. The Crimson attempted 23 and missed 14. Harvard lost by 13. You do the math.

Okay, that’s an overly simplistic numbers comparison, but this can’t keep up. Junior center Zena Edosomwan and sophomore forward Chris Egi combined to shoot 5-for-15 from the charity stripe by themselves. Come on. Harvard’s a defense-oriented team that wants to grind it out with some freshman backcourt threes thrown in. If you’re going to play that way, you better make the most of your foul line trips.

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Yale Season Preview – Retribution

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If one word could encapsulate Yale’s upcoming season, that word would be retribution.

 

The Elis lost the Ivy League championship and the coveted NCAA bid by a total of three points over two games within one week last March. As Bulldogs fans already know, they first fell at Dartmouth, 59-58, in a game which would have been the clincher and then they lost in a playoff at the Palestra, against arch-rival Harvard, by two.They have not been to the NCAAs since 1962.They were strangely denied an NIT bid, an eventuality which the Ivy office bears fault for not enough marketing of its teams during the season.
Yale won 22 games under all-time winningest coach James Jones, the school’s most since 1948-49.Those wins included one over then-defending national champion UConn on the road.

This year the Elis play another defending National Champion in Duke and take a road trip to powerhouse SMU, as well as a trip to Illinois.

You don’t hear the team members using the word retribution, but it’s lurking at every practice.

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Yale all-time moment No. 1: Elis share the 2015 title

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. We did Yale next by request of Justin Sears:

We all know the 2014-15 Yale men”s basketball season didn”t have a storybook ending. Just four months ago, Harvard edged out Yale at the Palestra, 53-51, in an already legendarily back-and-forth Ivy playoff game after the Bulldogs let a last-second lead literally slip away at Dartmouth that would have clinched the Elis” first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1962. Then the NIT online casino inexplicably slipped away too.

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Yale all-time moment No. 7: Knocking off the national champ

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We’re counting down the top 10 moments in each Ivy school’s history as part of our Ivy League at 60 retrospective. Yale is next by request of Ivy Player of the Year Justin Sears, who had 12 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks in our next all-time moment…

On Nov. 30, 2014, Yale did something it hadn’t done before: Defeat a defending national champion. And it did so in the most dramatic way possible.

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The Game 3.0

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There are games ... and then there are Games. And then there
There are games … and then there are Games.
… And then there”s this Game.

The Game 2.0 was supposed to be for all the marbles. Yale defeated Harvard in that one, but the next night, Dartmouth stole the marbles back from the Bulldogs. The Big Green’s miracle win versus Yale last Saturday will give Harvard a second shot at Yale this weekend. You have questions about this game? Read on for the answers.

The matchups I wrote about prior to the Yale victory will certainly be important once again, but an eventful week has passed since that article, so let’s look at some unique keys to this game:

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Yale defeats Harvard, clinches share of first Ivy title since 2002

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Javier Duren notched a winning stat line: 22 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block at Harvard.(ivyleaguesports.com)
Javier Duren notched a winning stat line: 22 points, nine rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block at Harvard.(ivyleaguesports.com)

Yale is a win away from history.

The Bulldogs clinched a share of their first Ivy title since 2002 Friday night by defeating Harvard at Lavietes Pavilion in Boston, 62-52. The win, fueled by senior guard Javier Duren’s 22 points and nine rebounds, gives Yale the chance to earn its first NCAA tournament berth since 1962 with a win at Dartmouth tomorrow night.

The Elis’ win at Harvard, which has represented the Ivy League in the NCAA tournament each of the past four seasons, played out in surprising fashion.

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Yale-Harvard: The matchups that matter most

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It used to always be this simple. Two teams — archrivals head and shoulders above the rest of the league — battle through the long slog of a 14-game tournament, rising above the Other Six to meet in an epic finale. With condolences to the P’s, this season, we return to that reliable formula under the New World Order as, for the second consecutive year, Harvard and Yale enter the final weekend as the only two teams still with a shot at the Ivy title.

Let’s take a look at the key matchups in this winner-take-all grudge match (though Brown and Dartmouth may have a few things to say about that on Saturday):

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Ivy Saturday Roundup

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Princeton 80, Brown 62

The visiting Tigers jumped out to a 12-2 advantage and never looked back, leading by 26 at one point and outplaying the Bears in every facet of the game. Steven Cook’s 15 points and seven boards set the pace for Princeton, as did 12-point efforts from Henry Caruso and Amir Bell. The Tigers are now just a game under .500 at 13-14 and still claim a distant third place in the Ivy standings. Tavon Blackmon curiously logged just five minutes despite no fouls and no obvious injuries. Nothing makes sense for Brown fans anymore.

Dartmouth 56, Cornell 45

Robert Hatter exploded for 23 points for the Big Red but the Big Green won the battle of the Bigs behind 41 combined points from Alex Mitola, Gabas Maldunas and Malik Gill off the bench. Dartmouth shot 7-for-15 from beyond the arc and wondered what Harvard found so hard about completing the Empire State sweep.

Yale 55, Penn 50

Things got real interesting in New Haven. The Quakers led for the first 37:41 of the game but couldn’t hang on late, with Justin Sears overcoming seven turnovers to notch a crucial block and three-point play in the game’s final minute. The Bulldogs get to 10-2 in Ivy play and will travel to Harvard next Friday for the game of the year. Javier Duren posted 19 points but shot just 4-for-15 from the field and was outshone by Antonio Woods, who scored 14 and added six assists in a losing effort. True to form, Jack Montague nailed two clutch threes down the stretch and finished with 11 points of his own.

Harvard 80, Columbia 70

And it’s the game of the year largely because Harvard won too, also climbing to 10-2 to keep pace with Yale atop the conference standings. Wesley Saunders posted 21 points, including 11 free throws, to lead the way for the Crimson, and Steve Moundou-Missi added 17 on 8-for-11 shooting. Host Columbia shot north of 53 percent for the second time against Harvard this season, but it came up with a second loss because the Lions just couldn’t get anyone going outside of Maodo Lo, whose 33-point, five-steal performance just wasn’t quite enough, even as the Lions cut Harvard’s lead to 48-44 with 11:54 remaining. The Lions have depth issues, but they  do have Alex Rosenberg and Grant Mullins coming back – next season.

Princeton falters at Payne Whitney … again

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Mitch Henderson fell to 2-6 all-time against Yale as Princeton's head coach Friday night in New Haven.
Mitch Henderson fell to 2-6 all-time against Yale as Princeton’s head coach Friday night in New Haven.

The Princeton brand took another body blow last night in New Haven, rekindling memories of the shocking collapse two seasons ago. At that time, the Tigers entered the final full weekend of the year needing a sweep to clinch another Ivy title or just one win to force a playoff with eventual winner Harvard. A shocking upset Friday night at Yale, followed by a listless walk-through at Brown the next night, sent the Tigers home with its season in tatters. That team voted to stay home in the postseason, turning down overtures from the CBI and CIT.

The stakes were not nearly as high this year as the Tigers embarked on the annual dogsled trip to New Haven and Providence. The young Tigers were aiming to leave a calling card at Payne Whitney, showing coach James Jones and the Bulldogs what they might have to face in the years to come.

If, in fact, that is what happened, you could not blame Jones if he let loose with a few guffaws after the dud Mitch Henderson lobbed his way.

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The five biggest Ivy upsets of the season

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Does what it says in the headline…
1.Yale 45, UConn 44- Yale was up most of the game at Gampel and it took a three from the corner by Jack Montague with 1.7 seconds remaining to seal the victory over the defending national champions.
2.Brown 77, Providence 67- This was a beatdown against a very good Providence team who could see the postseason. Brown was 12-for-13 from the free throw line to close out the game.
3.Penn 56, St. Joe’s 52-This is a bad Penn team, no doubt about that. But when Tony Hicks is playing well, the Quakers can compete with decent teams. Hicks notched 13 of his 15 points in the second half of a game in which Penn led for 29 minutes.
4.Brown 70, Saint Peter’s 58- This was a Saint Peter’s team which beat Rutgers, and Brown thoroughly outplayed them. Now former Bear Leland King had 16 points.
5.Cornell 68, George Mason 60- Sure, George Mason is no power, but this game was played on the road in November and few knew if Cornell was going to duplicate its inept effort of last season. Shonn Miller and Robert Hatter both posted 21 points.