This was very disappointing to watch. Yale showed it was the far better team for 25 minutes and then fell apart. I’ve seen this before with the NIT.
3 Likes
Just looked at the ESPN graph of win probability throughout. Sheesh. 9-22 from the foul line probably the key to a come-from-ahead one-point loss like that.
1 Like
I was teaching for most of this game, only saw maybe the last 5 minutes, but it was a horror show. Jones could not believe what he was seeing with Townsend’s stream of missed FTs down the stretch.
2 Likes
Only other thing to add: UNC Wilmington won by 1, and they scored 2 points after Jordan Brathwaite was called for a technical foul the explanation for which (as far as I could tell) satisfied nobody on the Yale side. However, to adapt a Coach Jones quote from 2019-20, “if we go 11-22 from the line, which is still terrible, we win anyway.”
Many ways they could have won that game, far fewer ways they could have lost it. Jordan’s technical foul was huge (I think UNCW hit a three in the possession after the two FTs?). Lots of points left on the FT line. Lots of open 3s that didn’t fall. A weaker mid-second half lineup with bench guards in where UNCW clawed back into the game from a 14-point deficit. I do not understand why a timeout wasn’t called in the final 30 seconds with the ball down one (when the team were clearly disorganized and Isaac ultimately called for a questionable offensive foul), and again why a timeout wasn’t called when Samson secured a defensive rebound with 10 seconds to go down one (to get a better shot than Trevor’s fadeaway baseline jumper). Someone on another thread complained that if Columbia couldn’t sell out their gym for their WBIT game, it was a failure. Yale couldn’t even get 600 people to this NIT game (and that includes about a hundred Yale student-athletes on campus during spring break). I think even Dartmouth could dig up a bigger crowd from their local community…
Sigh. The season is over and we move on. A salute to Yale’s 3 seniors – Nick, Casey, Devon – who built on a tradition of excellence and who graduate with more wins than any other class in Yale history. I’m excited to see who steps up next year.
Ncaa needs to expand tournament and kill this thing.
No money except net gate receipts for home team
Braithwaite didn’t see the floor after his technical foul until 20 seconds left. Fox replaced him, who has been ice cold for a minute now (0-8 last night with several open looks late). Yale was the better team in so many ways but found ways to lose unfortunately. Also that offensive foul on Celiscar with 20 seconds left was atrocious.
I think this is a rather large offseason for Yale. Can we keep our talent to match other schools bringing in more talent? The lineup looks pretty barren quickly if we do in fact lose Townsend, Simmons, Aletan, Celiscar (?). If Penn does in fact bring in another top 100 recruit with little Mccaffrey while keeping TJ Power, this could be a new era of Ivy Basketball.
I don’t know that there’s any reason to go quite that far. It’d be nice to retain Isaac, and without him, we probably will need to rebuild next year, but we have a great class coming in. We also have a promising freshman class. It’s not like we’ll be gone long-term. (I’m also going to renew my gripe about recruiting rankings - we’ll see how good young McCaffrey is if and when he gets here.)
Thanks for talking me off the ledge. I’m still reeling from Sunday.