Back on the Big Stage

James Jones sat at the press conference stage last Sunday reflecting. In one hand, a water bottle. In the other, the net that his team had just cut down from Levien Gymnasium. 

Thirty minutes earlier the Bulldogs had completed an improbable comeback to win the Ivy Madness title and punch its ticket to the big dance. Trailing by six with under 30 seconds remaining, Yale battled back to top Brown 62-61. Matt Knowling’s game-winning floater as time expired capped off an 8-1 run to close the contest.

In his opening comments, Jones made sure to point out that the final basket was an assisted one. 

After Brown gave a foul with 6.1 seconds remaining, August Mahoney inbounded the ball finding Danny Wolf at the top of the key. Wolf began to drive in the direction of the basket but a few steps in retreated and gave it off to Bez Mbeng back at the top of the key with just under four seconds remaining. All the while, Knowling had positioned himself on the block. Mbeng drove, drew a defender and dished to Knowling. The rest was history. The Bulldogs were going to the NCAA tournament for the fourth time since 2016. 

“I just wanted to put myself by the basket to clean up any misses – you know offensive rebounds,” Knowling recounted. “I didn’t think I was going to be that open and Bez, like coach said, was looking to make a play for someone else and he found me.”

When asked specifically about the execution of the final play, Jones -- now rolling the bottom strings of the net in the fingertips of both his hands – paused. He looked down and reflected far beyond the events of the last 30 minutes. 

“I used to sell computer products for about five years when I got out of school and I had an opportunity to get a master’s degree and coach part time. I was going to get an MBA and go make a lot of money on Wall Street,” said Jones, now in his 25th year at the helm of the Yale program. “And in that first job I had as a JV head coach at Albany, I got snakebit with this. To be around young men on a daily basis and to try to help them become better versions of themselves is what I feel like I was meant to do on this planet.”

Much of Yale’s season can be defined by what occurred in the Ivy Madness final just five days ago. There have been highs and lows, but what remained consistent was the team’s resiliency. 

Before the season even started, one thing that was already high was the expectations for the team. 

The Bulldogs were the Ivy League preseason favorite, receiving 14 of 16 possible first place votes. Yale returned a plethora of talent, highlighted by Knowling a unanimous first team All-Ivy selection. The league’s defending defensive player of the year – now a back-to-back winner of the award – Bez Mbeng was back. Two of the top 3-point shooters in the league in August Mahoney and John Poulakidas were back. Danny Wolf, a freshman the previous season who saw limited playing time, impressed at the FIBA U20 European Championship for Israel. He was one of two players to average a double-double in the tournament. Not to mention, the Bulldogs brought back much of its bench from the team that won an Ivy title a year ago. 

In the front half of the season, there were moments -- and extended periods -- where the team proved why it was more than worthy of its preseason distinction. 

In their second game of the season, fittingly in Spokane, the Bulldogs jumped to an early lead over Gonzaga, leading the commentators to remark that what they were watching resembled a Saint Mary’s-Gonzaga game. In its other high-caliber test, the Bulldogs led Kansas until about the midway point of the second half. Yale pieced together strong wins over Loyola Marymount, Santa Clara, Colgate and Quinnipiac. 

But it did not come without growing pains. 

Yale enters Friday’s matchup against fourth-seeded Auburn in Spokane with a record of 22-9. Some of those losses could have been wins – a fact that is not lost on Jones. 

“I think that we’re as talented of a group as I’ve ever had in a starting lineup,” Jones said at the team’s Ivy Madness shootaround press conference last Friday. “These five seniors I have are really good. There are times in which I see the best team that I’ve ever coached and there are times that I don’t see that.” 

At the time of his comments, Yale’s loss to Brown to close out the regular season was still fresh. The Bulldogs had the coveted Ivy title within its grasp, maintaining the lead for almost the entirety of the contest. Brown, however, fought back from a 13-point deficit to force overtime and eventually downed the Bulldogs 84-81. 

While the final game of the regular season may have resembled some of the tough losses Yale encountered earlier in the season, it did not carry over into the Ivy Madness semifinal. The Bulldogs looked a lot more like the team that won 15 of its final 19 games and challenged teams like Gonzaga and Kansas. Yale shot nearly 50 percent from the floor and limited Cornell’s explosive offense to set up a rematch with the team that had snatched the Ivy League title from its grasp. 

Both teams were slow at the beginning offensively, but in the closing stages Brown emerged with a lead that seemed insurmountable.

But the funny thing about growing pains is the product that comes along with them … growth.  

“I looked at these guys and I was telling them if we’re going to lose, we’re going to lose like a champion, we’re going to go down fighting,” senior August Mahoney said. 

“I just like to think that our kids always believe and as long as there’s time on the clock you have an opportunity,” Jones said. 

With their season in the balance the Bulldogs did not waiver. Preceding Knowling’s game-winner was an old-fashioned 3-point play from Mbeng on a must-have shot. Then came a clutch 3-ball from Poulakidas to cut the lead to one. 

The Bulldogs are now in Spokane gearing up for what will be another big test against another red-hot team. The Tigers are winners of their last six and ran away from Florida in the SEC championship.

Jones once again sat at press conference stage on Thursday. This one was surrounded with the unmistakable blue NCAA March Madness logos. It stood a little higher than the one he sat at last week reflecting on his team’s journey to reach this point. 

“We feel good about what we’re doing and I felt back then when we played Kansas if we got an opportunity to play in the NCAA tournament that I like our chances playing on a neutral court against basically anybody in the country,” he said. “We got anybody in the country with Auburn so we’ll have to be ready to play.”