Did not realize it was an early start and just saw the first half shooting stats - Yale 62.1% / 77.8%; PU 36.7% / 36.4%.
Wow.
Jack Scott takes the worst shots ever. Immediate momentum shift towards Yale.
Lee and Byriel picked the wrong day to miss every wide-open 3 they get.
Really an off night. Lee not up to par, hope he’s not sick. Almost everyone’s shooting is off. Discouraging!
Happy and Hicke are our Hope?
Barring foul trouble, Lee never sits for long unless he’s sick/injured. I’m guessing he’s under the weather again. Meanwhile, Yale is in a groove right now.
Fortunately, it all comes down to the Ivy Tourney anyway. 14-0 means nothing without a 2-0 ILT. And 8-6 can go dancing with 2 lucky wins.
Mitch waved the white flag with 7m left. All starters out. YIKES.
The effort was there. The execution was not. Lots of TOs and tough shots forced - but they missed the easy ones and Yale made the hard ones.
It is kinda fun watching Stanton and Happy go to work. If Pierce stays, I like our chances next season with Poulakidas and Mbeng graduating for Yale.
The bench unit cuts it to 10pts and refs still giving Yale every 50/50 call.
Oh come on 
Yale is gonna win this. At least make it exciting.
Stanton is a future star.
Why did they not get him the ball down 5 with 26s left? Could’ve stolen one but it was not to be. Probably should have gotten Lee or Pierce into the game to set up Stanton.
Oh well. This game was a gut punch but the bench unit salvaged some energy.
Watched the end of the game this morning.
Does Mitch start the bench today??? 
Their energy was amazing.
With Aletan down low and MBeng on the periphery, our drive-and-kick offense was completely stymied.
The offense was created by Tosan, and with him gone, Pierce and Lee try the same approach.
Just watched the replay after seeing the game in person last night. As most James Jones teams, this Yale unit is just completely relentless and physically dominant. They just completely outhustled our starters. They made Xaivian look slow and Caden look small and the two stars combined for a lowly 7 points. Yale scrapped for loose balls that our guys didn’t seem to want to try for.
In contrast, the four freshman plus Hicke lineup hustled all over the floor, dove for loose balls and played with high energy and abandon. I would love to see Mitch bring that group into the game tonight as a unit, if not to start the game then maybe five minutes into the game. Let’s see what they can do. They’ve earned it.
2 Likes
Agreed with all points.
Poulakidas, btw, hit shots that were uncanny. He is the best in the league, if not the country. Who guards him???
He said in the post-game interview they practiced for the double in the post, and it showed.
Does our coaching staff not see stuff like this? You gotta be equally physical with Yale to beat them.
Mbeng is a great defender, but he was a turnover machine under pressure: 9 TOs (!!!) He fell for every trap in the backcourt and they didn’t have a second ballhandler to take the pressure off him.
If Stanton came in for Davis or Lee 3 minutes earlier, the Cardiac Cats would have had another impossible comeback. Instead, I’m hoping our guys don’t lose to Brown by 20 today.
I’d rather lose in January than March, but this team needs to realize that their usual gameplan does not work on Yale (or Cornell). You can’t out-finesse them. You gotta outwork them.
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this team needs to realize that their usual gameplan does not work on Yale (or Cornell). You can’t out-finesse them. You gotta outwork them.
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Outwork, yes! Especially against Cornell. But against Yale, absent a full court press causing turnovers, where do we get offense??
By the way, that loud sound is Lee’s draft status falliing. Mbeng is synecdoche for NBA level defense, which he would see every night.
If Princeton consistently cut hard, passed well, and took good shots, they would have a chance to “out finesse them” as you put it. But this Tiger team is not that. We had a few nice back doors for scores but we also took some woeful shots at the end of some ugly possessions. I don’t mean to just pick on one guy but when Jack Scott gets the ball and tries to back the other team down, the other four Tigers mind as well just run back to play defense because you know he’s going to get his shot blocked or throw up an ugly miss.
Poor Philip Byriel has completely lost the shooting touch he had early in the season-- oh for six last night. Make me happy, Mitch, and start CJ tonight!
I definitely give Mbeng a lot of credit on Lee’s terrible game… but it was also just Lee bricking wide-open 3s. Aletan is a good rim protector and refs were letting both teams play. So he took open 3s but bricked them all. Lee did have 7 assists despite no one but Peters making any shots… just needed to step up on defense.
As for Jack Scott, his hero ball is truly baffling. I was not sad to see him leave for William & Mary or excited by his return. He’s incredibly mistake-prone and clinched last year’s ILT loss to Brown: his basket interference on a Pierce and-1 (only got 1pt instead of 2-3) and his clumsy foul on Lilly down 3 with 40s left to play.
Lee was not sick