Dartmouth and Harvard come to town for a good old-fashioned Ivy League back to back. Dartmouth has looked feisty so far in league play, and Harvard is coming off a disappointing loss to Cornell last weekend. I expect a challenge.
Didn’t get to see the first half but Yale was on fire from outside in the second half
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Good win. Was surprised to see how poor the crowd was. I remember the Friday/Saturday night crowds drawing big with a nice student section. I saw there was a hockey game vs #10 Cornell in town, maybe that was an issue.
Hopefully tonight vs Harvard we get some support for a 16-3 team.
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I don’t want to get too far out over my skis, but the defense has been a lot better recently. A lot of Dartmouth’s offense came from making contested jumpers late in the shot clock, which you’d obviously take if you’re Yale. Much better spatial awareness, better one-on-one physicality, better digs. Hopefully the trend continues.
yuck
Seen that movie before
This Yale team reminds me of the 2023-24 Princeton team. They’re clearly the best in the league, but their soft defense makes them vulnerable in Ivy/ILT play.
Bez Mbeng was a huge difference maker. He could contain guards like Lee or Hinton.
I think that’s pretty spot on. They can’t contain opposing guards and don’t dominate the glass to win the possession battle.
Looking back at some of the non-conference results, a lot of it was just blitzing teams on offense. In league, we get scouted much more.
In the end it took a miracle shot to beat us, but that doesn’t take away the fact that we were down 11 at home to an inferior team.
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Agreed overall – with the caveat that I thought Casey played Hinton quite well when he was in the game. Most of Hinton’s points were when Yale’s bench guards were in, plus FTs and a few uncontested fastbreak layups after out-of-control drives from Yale. Hinton is an expert at selling fouls even when there is minimal contact (e.g. Harvard’s penultimate offensive possession). He had a phenomenal game but displayed little class when he jeered and taunted the Yale student section after the win…not a great look.
Rivalry games are usually battles, closer than analytics would predict. Hopefully this motivates Yale for the second half of conference play.
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Honestly I don’t think the defense was the problem today, it was the “scoring only 6 points in the second quarter” bit. Harvard shot well on the road, which happens sometimes, but it doesn’t matter if Yale doesn’t manage only 6 points in the final 10 of the first. Riley and Isaac had real clunkers, which just can’t happen.
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Yeah you’re right. 65 points at home isn’t enough.
Mullins was hot at least.
Hard to win with a total of four points from Fox and Celiscar. Decent second half for the team but a prolonged drought towards the end of the first half was a killer. Seemed like there was a lid on the basket then.
“expert at selling fouls” is very diplomatic way of saying ref show, recalled at least two personal fouls where he just slipped and fell over himself as the ball handler, unbelievable calls from the ref
perimeter defense was really solid though, i think people undersell casey as point of attack defender with or without bez. i don’t believe that hinton was dominating him specifically
i’m okay with hinton taunting the student section though, they were very loud and hostile and it speaks to the competitiveness of the rivalry. loss is only worse because of the final shot, we move on
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Bothered me in the moment because I’m a sore loser but I’d want our guys to do the same thing back to the student section if the roles were reverse