Home of the Roundball Poets
Yale was traveling from Hanover to Harvard Friday night and coming off a 97-53 home thrashing by Columbia a week before against a Crimson squad that had taken down mighty Princeton the same day. It seemed like a recipe for defeat.
But first-year coach Dalila Eshe’s team delivered a Saturday night stunner by pulling out a 71-70 overtime win at Lavietes Pavilion.
Saturday was just another day at the office for high-flying Columbia women’s basketball.
The Light Blue defeated Yale, 97-53, at John J. Lee Amphitheater before a highly partisan Columbia crowd.
Columbia (12-2, 1-0 Ivy) never trailed in winning its ninth straight contest.
Give Felisha Legette-Jack a lot of credit. The first-year Syracuse women’s coach brought a power-conference team into John J. Lee Amphitheater to do battle with Yale.
And the Orange escaped with a 60-58 win.
Yale (4-5) dominated the first half, building a 17-8 lead by the 3:53 mark, holding Syracuse (6-2) to 3-for-16 shooting from the field and converting on three of trey attempts. Yale controlled the tempo and forced Syracuse into a slower style of play.
It’s still Princeton’s conference until another Ivy proves that it isn’t. Our contributors are united in believing that the Tigers will stay on top in 2022-23, with Megan Griffith’s ascendant Columbia program again placing second.
But there wasn’t consensus on how the rest of the top half of the league will fill out.
Penn could break back into the Ivy League Tournament after missing it for the first time last season, but we expect the Red & Blue to draw stiff competition from Harvard and Yale in their first years under new coaches.
Will #2bidivy happen in the league for only the second time in conference history? It very well could, and the bottom half of the conference is likely to be substantially stronger this season as Brown and Dartmouth return more experienced rosters under coaches that now have a year of Ivy play under their belts.
Allison Guth, arguably the most successful women’s basketball coach in the history of Yale’s program, is now the new head coach at Loyola Chicago.
Guth said that her decision to leave Yale was “a personal one,” as most of the Arlington Heights, Ill. native’s family resides in the greater Chicago area. Guth herself is an Illinois native and played college basketball at Illinois.
It was a big game for both teams, but it was arguably even bigger for Yale.
The inconsistent Bulldogs sat at 6-3 and Columbia at 7-1 in Ivy play entering Saturday’s fray. Yale very much wanted to separate from Harvard and avoid the Columbia season sweep.
It was the Abby Meyers and Julia Cunningham show in New Haven Friday night.
Yale staked its claim to second place in Ivy women’s basketball Saturday afternoon at home by beating Penn, 63-53.
Now that was a finish to remember.
Yale overcame a slow start and the absence of all-everything Camilla Emsbo to injury to beat Brown at John J. Lee Amphitheater Monday, 69-67, on a layup by Christen McCann with 1.8 seconds remaining.
🤩 Here is Christen McCann’s game-winner from today’s 69-67 @ivyleague win vs. Brown!#ThisIsYale pic.twitter.com/iB7UCuNN2L
— Yale Women’s Basketball (@YaleWBasketball) January 17, 2022
Jenna Clark, the Ivy assist leader, dished on the winning bucket.
The winner was set up by a Klara Astrom steal with five seconds remaining. Coach Allison Guth then called a timeout to set up the winning shot.
McCann played a full 39 minutes and led her team with 19 points on 7-for-9 shooting. The Port St. Lucie, Fla. native also added eight rebounds.
Versatile senior forward Alex Cade took over for Emsbo at center and led Yale (10-6, 3-1 Ivy) with 11 rebounds while standing out with a career-high 18 points.
First-year guard Isabella Mauricio led Brown (5-11, 0-4) with her own career high of 23 points.
Brown carried a 41-37 lead into the locker room off of a torrid 53% shooting from the field. The Bears had taken a 22-21 lead at the end of the first quarter on a Mauricio trey at the buzzer and then went on a 12-0 run to start the second quarter.
Both Mauricio and freshman forward Amanda Latkany had eight in the half and Yale was paced by Jenna Clark with seven. Latkany had missed both the Harvard and Princeton losses.
Yale outscored Brown over the third stanza, fueled by an 8-0 run. Brown carried a narrow 56-55 lead into the last period.
Brown entered the game averaging only 55 points per game but shot 47% from the floor.
Yale outrebounded the visitors 43-31 and held a 16-1 advantage on the offensive glass to claim its third straight win.
Brown hosts Columbia and Yale hosts Penn next Saturday, both at 2 p.m.
In 13 previous games this season, Yale sophomore guard Elles van Der Maas had logged a total of 29 minutes in 10 appearances, scoring 29 points.
But Saturday against Harvard, the Sydney, Australia native exploded for a team-high 22 points in 25 minutes, helping lead Yale to a hard-fought 80-73 win over Harvard at John J. Lee Amphitheater.
That was half the story.