Mmm, I’m with James on this one. Yale doesn’t have much height/length in the post. Obviously Samson has a bunch, but Nick has short arms and isn’t particularly tall, Isaac is Knowling-sized, etc.
This team doesn’t really have much in the way of knock-down shooters. Bez and Nick can hit them when they’re open, but those aren’t the shots they’d prefer to take. Yale is 333rd in the country in threes attempted as a percentage of total shots taken. This is a team that wants to go inside, so I want to know what they can do if the post doesn’t come so easy.
(Also, I’m with James on this being a jinx thread — lotta season left!)
What’s interesting is the 2025 team is attaining its analytical ratings similar to 2016 team, and differently than 2020 team.
The 2020 team had a great non-conference (OT Loss @ San Fran, Win vs. Clemson, 3 point loss to UNC, 2 point loss to Penn State they lead the whole game) but had more conference losses than 2016 and (likely) 2025 teams.
2025 team has the best adjusted efficiency margin in Ivy play since 2016 Yale (basically same as 2017 Princeton), but of course through 7 games where as those 2 other great teams did it through entire conference slate.
All of this to say that maybe what’s most noteworthy about the 2025 squad is finding this level of dominance in conference play that wasn’t so obvious it was going to be there based on pre-season, and even early non-conf slate.
Having Poulakidas (for a month) and Simmons (for a shorter period) out for part of the non-conference schedule allowed Jones to integrate Celiscar and Fox into the rotation which has been a big help. No one is crowning Yale with anything at the halfway point of the league schedule but the first half has been fun and encouraging.
If Yale can avoid turnovers and giving up transition buckets, they can play good half-court defense and pull an opponent into the mud. Then the problems of being an inside-oriented team without superior height may not matter so much, given the skill, passing, and OR intensity they usually show.
The complete story of this team isn’t written yet, but after a 13-1 regular League season and an Ivy tournament win, I’m curious how the many well-informed contributors to this site would rank this Yale team compared to other Yale teams of recent history.
Interesting thought Eli.I go with the following, as of today, subject to amendment on Saturday after Michigan:
2019-20- Just name them. Gabbidon, Monroe, Swain, Cotton, EJ, Atkinson, Bruner. And ND and Bama came calling. But that last game against Harvard was a head scratcher. I believe that the tourneys would have been great.
2016- Makai, Makai, Makai. Just ask Baylor and then Coach K when down 3 and with the ball, after the furious comeback in Providence.
This team- Can’t fight 13-1.John and Bez 2 top 10 Yale players of all-time.
Last year- Hello Bruce Pearl.
62- Rick Kaminsky might have been the best Eli ever. Bill Bradley made some ver kind comments to me about him many years ago. Retire number 22, please.
i add a “what if” …2017-18 . i had some stuff going on and was a bit disconnected from news flow preseason.
i just remember how excited i was about blending Makai, Bruner and Oni.
i did get a blow by blow of a preseason scrimmage against Rutgers and it was clicking.
i think we all saw how good Makai later was at Baylor even playing on one foot and not practicing. he scored 40 in a big 12 conf game.
Bruner had so many acl tears dating back to his junior year of hs i lost count. i still watched jordan torch auburn his grad year at auburn before yet another in season tear (but dr andrews is on staff at auburn- he came back)
*dr andrews is on staff at auburn and alabama. meant the latter obviously. jordan played in the sec on one leg. he was still effective out of position playing center.
I would agree with this order (except for 62, which I can’t comment on). You can’t really compare KP numbers across years, but the 2015-16 team finished T50 and had an adjusted KP rating of +14.33 - basically, they would be expected to beat the median college team by 14 points on a neutral floor. Plus that team had to make it past a T75 Princeton team that would run the table in the league the following year.
The 2020 team ended up 58th in KenPom, and they had several bites at the Quad-1-win apple. They won one, went to OT in another, and had a third — against KP 25 Penn State!— completely and utterly won until a bizarre 3/11 from the stripe did them in. (Coach Jones in his postgame presser: “If we go 6/11 from the line, which is still terrible, we win.” Other fun fact: Dave Portnoy bet some egregious sum on Yale ML in that game and ended up feuding with Eric Monroe a bit subsequently.) Plus they had to go through a much stronger Ivy league. Penn and Harvard futzed around in the noncon, so their KP rankings weren’t gaudy, but they both were extremely talented. Ask any of the Penn fans about Dingle and Brodeur.
This team has an adjusted KP rating of +11.04 and is 73rd right now. Their best win is currently N vs. KP 99 Akron. They’re good for sure, but I can’t even consider putting them above either the 2016 or 2020 team unless they make noise in the tourney.
