I’m a Princeton fan but I also recognize game. Go get it! The Ivy League is depending on you!
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Texas A&M is very beatable. Defensive-minded team that only scores 74ppg. I’m picking Yale for the upset.
Potential Danny Wolf reunion in Round 2. Gotta give Michigan the edge if they advance, but UC San Diego could beat them (best midmajor in the nation) and be a much better matchup for Yale.
Another Ivy Sweet 16 could be on the menu…
I like how the bracket looks for Yale, although a 1st round against an SEC is not going to be an easy team to upset at all
How true. And though A&M’s lost five of their recent seven games, those 5 losses came against four top 20 programs and a strong University of Texas team - in a game that went into double overtime. A&M doesn’t need to score more than seventy points to best Yale, Gokinsmen, given their season-long defensive consistency against first-rate competition. Nor will there be any letdown against Yale - A&M’s players have probably already been made aware of what Yale did in the opening round of the tournament last year against Auburn; a school A&M is more than familiar with. Now Yale’s surely had a nice run, but it ends on Thursday.
A&M’s defense is formidable, and their (more) athletic players pose a serious threat to Yale’s intense and physical style of play. However, don’t think it’s going to be a cakewalk for them.
Some statistics to consider:
A&M (per Kenpom):
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Free Throw %: 69.5% (#274 in nation)
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Three Point %: 31.1% (#317)
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Two Point %: 48.0% (#293)
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Effective FG %: 47.5% (#317)
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Off Rebounds/Gm: 13.6 (#1)
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Off Rebound %: 40.2% (#1)
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Total Rebounds/Gm: 41.2 (#4)
A&M is a horrible shooting team. Most games, they shoot so many bricks, Habitat for Humanity would have enough to build homes for all of College Station. An rebuttal may be that they’re playing against elite conference opponents, but I wouldn’t expect an extreme deviation from season-long norms. While the eye test indicates that the Aggies are terrible on offense, it’s evident that they’re a dominant rebounding team, which poses a problem for Yale’s personnel like Simmons and Aletan. 40.2% off rebound is not a joke.
Some food for thought: A worse Yale team last year (yes, even with DWolf) faced the SEC champions Auburn and prevailed. This year, a more cohesive and dominant Yale team faces an SEC team that got knocked out by a not-very-strong Texas bubble team in the second round. People said Yale was doomed in the Auburn matchup, so I like their chances against an inferior Aggies squad.
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“I know they’re in the Ivy League, I know Coach Jones, but I don’t know anything else.”
Coach Buzz is so locked in. Perks of playing a non-power 4 team, zero scouting necessary!
buzz is a lunch pail coach.
he will pull all nighters learning yale. do not underestimate him.
he runs a practice gameday like no one i have seen and that’s how his teams play.
he will also pronounce poulakidas’ name right before thursday with his tx drawl unlike bruce😂
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Eli, you can’t be taken seriously when you label UTexas, ‘not so good’ and A&M, ‘inferior’. Do you even care to know that UTexas has 7 wins against quad/1 NCAA team? Or that A&M has played 23 quad/1 games, winning 13 of them - now 13 wins and 10 losses against quad/1 opponents isn’t great; but it also means a team’s played 23 tournament level games before the tournament even begins, which can be quite an edge going into Thursday. And while you note A&M lost to U Texas, that game did go into double-overtime.
Now, how many quad/1 wins does Yale have this season? ZERO. NO, the SEC isn’t overrated. The tournament committee’s emphasis on wins against the highest quality opponents makes it clear that the Ivy League and Yale are fortunate to have any kind of representation in the event.
Carrying around a delusional sense of being somehow entitled to multiple Ivy League school invitations doesn’t fly!
Okay, let me break it down carefully since you might be thinking slow in your fit of passion:
FACT: Texas is a bubble team and is objectively one of the worst SEC teams that qualified this year.
FACT: This Texas A&M team is an inferior team to last year’s Auburn.
FACT: Yale is 0-1 in Quad 1 games. That means that out of 1 Quad 1 matchup scheduled, Yale lost that single game (to Purdue in November of last year). Ivy League teams don’t really get the benefit of having many elite non-conference teams that want to play them, so less Quad 1 games schedule, but you knew that right?
I never claimed that Yale had the upper hand, just considered some stats that I think show Yale having a more favorable matchup this year as opposed to last year. I don’t see where I advocated for the Ivy League to have multiple bids this year, and the Ivy League is not “fortunate” to receive representation. We are entitled to an auto bid like every other conference for the past decades. Take a break from trolling and picking verbal spats. Just read carefully.
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I do not underestimate him, just a funny quote. I’m sure he’ll get film sessions in.
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I literally just checked the quad 1 records for all Ivy teams to check the validity of your claim. The most quad 1 games played in the Ivy was Penn (5: Nova, VCU, George Mason, Penn State, Yale). The only win was achieved by Columbia (1-1) with a win against Nova.
In any case, most IL teams have only one quad 1 game scheduled this year to guess who… the Ivy League champions Yale. Thus, if Yale had not been playing so brilliantly, most IL teams would have 0 (ZERO) quad 1 games, which makes it a nonsensical metric for IL teams. But yeah I can’t be taken seriously LOL.
Eli, why not stay away from ad hominem attacks that have nothing to do with what should be a civil debate? And if it’s too much for you to tolerate a bit of disagreement in the direction of your dissertation, just mute me!
FACTS: UTexas isn’t the best the SEC has to offer, but that team won SEVEN quad/1 games and there’s not a team Yale played that would thrown an ounce of fear into them. Then you include as factual that A&M is inferior to last year’s Auburn team; even though A&M just beat this season’s version of Auburn on March 3rd, and fairly convincingly; and this year’s Auburn is CLEARLY superior to the 23-24 model.
There are a number of conferences and schools that received automatic bids to the event at the expense of schools like West Virginia. In an ideal world, the tournament committee wants, and the sporting spectator community demands, that the sixty-eight best school teams be party to the event. Yale and several other invitees are not part of anybody’s 68-best list; thus gratitude is in order. That’s not trolling, Eli; that’s simply as you would put it best, FACT.
There doesn’t seem to be disagreement to my dissertation, only feelings getting hurt from your end. 
Sorry to disappoint you, but desperate references to quad 1 records and general SEC worship is not a rebuttal or alternative point to my claims. Just vibes-based analysis that I don’t care for. It’s clear you just don’t know ball, and that’s fine. If you keep up with the games, watch the film, A&M is a good ball team who won against a short-handed Auburn team who did not put their best effort forward. But that does not mean they would beat last year’s SEC champs.
I don’t know why anyone would want an ideal world where all we get are NIL-heavy, power-4 matchups and zero mid-major representation, but I want no part in that horrible world. There is no gratitude necessary to anyone: I rather see compelling mid majors like Yale and UCSD and other conference champions than watch bottom-feed B10 slop for March Madness.
I have no issue with seeing yours or anyone’s opinion on my feed, but you ought to have actual points to your disagreements.
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No, Eli, neither the NCAA committee nor me is desperate for hanging out hats on Quad/1 wins. And you may yet discover someday that gratitude’s a good thing to invest in, if you can ever get past your sense of entitlement. In any case, do enjoy the game.
Today I learned that entitlement is relying on the institutional process that has created the NCAA bracket for decades.
Don’t lecture me on gratitude, how condescending. All I asked for was grounded basketball insights and still got nothing from you LOL. As for you, I hope you actually watch the game for a change.
To the contrary, Eli, the condescension, noxious odor and resultant bad karma you may be envisioning isn’t coming from me; though all of that may weigh heavily and undeservedly so upon James Jones and his men going into Thursday’s challenging-enough encounter. Let’s allow the players to decide the game and see what happens.
Coach Jones and his team will put up a good fight. You would know that if you actually watch the games instead of crowing about SEC quad 1 wins.
Still no sign of grounded basketball insights.
Eli, you’re much more insulting than close to convincing and your insecurity’s really becoming more and more pronounced and problematic for poor James Jones; as you continue to crawl and whistle your way through the graveyard. But I’ll be gracious enough to allow you the last word, since everyone can see see how much that may matter to you. All the best.
You misunderstand me: I want to talk about basketball. You want to talk about me. I don’t need the last say for others to know that you are unserious about actual basketball discussion.
Also, I wonder how James Jones’s preparation would be affected by an anonymous IL hoops forum. If it is, Yale is fucked.
All projection and confession, Eli.