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Yale sophomore guard Bez Mbeng leads his team in assists at 4.1 per game and in steals with a total of 36. The 6-foot-4 Potomac, Md. native who coach James Jones told Ivy Hoops Online is the best on-ball defender he’s ever coached. IHO caught up with Mbeng for an interview in advance of Yale’s game against Cornell Saturday night:
Penn is on the verge of a trip to the Ivy League Tournament after pulling off one of its most thrilling victories in years.
The Quakers (15-11, 7-4 Ivy) took down Yale, 66-64, Friday night in a classic Palestra matchup between two teams that have now split their home-and-home series for six consecutive seasons. The two teams exchanged the lead 14 times. Neither led by more than six points.
Penn took the lead for good when sophomore guard George Smith hit an open three at the top of the key off a nice feed from Max Martz to give the Quakers a 52-50 lead with 7:19 to go.
The end was a sequence of events that likely gave Penn fans heart palpitations. The Quakers held a four-point lead with less than 13 seconds to go, but let Bulldogs (17-7, 7-4) guard John Poulakidas hit an open three with about 5.8 seconds on the clock.
Penn got the ball inbounds without issue, but normally reliable free-throw shooter Clark Slajchert split a pair at the line. Despite getting a chance to tie or win the game, Yale could not get off a final shot before the buzzer sounded.
There’s a lot for Penn fans to process ahead of a Saturday night tilt against Brown, such as how …
A key injury spelled doom for Yale at the Palestra in a 66-64 loss to Penn Friday.
With 18 minutes left in the game and the score knotted at 33-33, Yale leading scorer Matt Knowling rolled his ankle. He would not return to the game and his status for tonight against Princeton is questionable.
Penn hung on in a defensive struggle featuring 14 lead changes in which Yale converted just three field goals in the final 5:26. The visitors’ fate was sealed when a fallaway shot landed off base after Yale got the ball back down two with 5.1 seconds left following a 1-for-2 trip to the foul line by Ivy League free-throw percentage leader Clark Slajchert.
Following Saturday afternoon’s action, the upper division pulled away from the bottom half, while the Brown rebuild took a positive step forward.
Columbia bounced back from a disappointing result against Princeton by taking it out on Yale in front of 1,485 fans at Levien Gymnasium. The Lions jumped out to a 32-17 halftime lead on the strength of a 14-0 second quarter run. The Light Blue made it a 20-point game after three and widen it to a game-high 28 points with just under four minutes to go in the contest. Defensively, they limited the Bulldogs to 32% shooting and only 49 points, the first time they held an Ivy opponent under 50 this season.
Week seven for the Ancient Eight saw Yale avenge its shocking opening day loss at Columbia and move into a tie at the top of the conference leaderboard. After a close half that saw the Bulldogs holding onto a slim 31-26 lead, the Bulldogs outscored the last-place Lions 58-32 for the dominant 31-point win. Yale, winners of six straight, had 13 different players in the scoring column and shot 65% from the field.
Revenge was certainly on the docket for Yale when it hosted Columbia at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday.
The Lions had upset Yale 62-60 on New Year’s Eve at Levien Gym in what remains their only Ivy win. Yale returned the favor Saturday with a resounding 99-68 win.
“We certainly wanted to avenge the loss,” Yale coach James Jones said. “I told them that I didn’t have to motivate them.”
Yale women’s basketball gave up 97 points to high-octane Columbia when the teams met at John J. Lee Amphitheater on New Year’s Eve.
So giving up 74 points to the Lions showed a modicum of progress for the Bulldogs at Levien Gym Saturday.
The problem was that Columbia stymied Yale’s offense in a 74-46 clinic controlled by the home team.
The defense led the way.
That was Yale coach James Jones’ observation about how his Bulldogs engineered a 72-53 win at Dartmouth Saturday to even the season series and stay within a game of Princeton in the Ivy League title chase.
“[W]e were able to put some stops together to end the first half, which gave us momentum coming out of halftime,” Jones said. “Outside of a five-minute stretch offensively in the first half, we played perfectly.”
Yale men’s basketball picked up where its scorching hot hands left off last Saturday against Princeton, building a 19-point second-half lead and surviving a late comeback rush from Harvard to notch a 68-57 win at Lavietes Pavilion.
Harvard (12-10, 3-5 Ivy) had trailed 48-29 with 16:25 remaining but in the next 14 minutes of game seized enough momentum to trail by just five points, 62-57. Yale salted away the game from the free-throw line in the final minute after a defensive clampdown.