MEN’S BASKETBALL: Yale extends win streak to six with 84–59 victory at Columbia
The Bulldogs made 17 of their 23 second-half shot attempts to help them turn what was a two-point lead with 16 minutes remaining into a blowout win Saturday afternoon in Manhattan.
William McCormack, Contributing Photographer
NEW YORK CITY — The Yale men’s basketball team shot a season-high 63 percent from the floor Saturday as it defeated Columbia to keep its lone spot atop the Ivy League standings.
Yale (14–9, 8–1 Ivy) raced off in the second half to beat the last-place Lions (4–18, 1–9), 84–59. After a back-and-forth start to the game that featured seven lead changes, Columbia threatened to retake the lead after scoring the first seven points of the second half. Instead, Yale shot 17-for-21 over the game’s last 16 minutes to turn a two-point contest — the Bulldogs led 39–37 four minutes into the second half — into a runaway win.
The win, Yale’s sixth straight, keeps the Bulldogs alone in first place ahead of a challenging back-to-back against the Ancient Eight’s second and third-place teams — Penn and Princeton — next weekend at home.
“We wanted to focus on a whole 40 minutes, no matter who we’re playing,” forward Matt Knowling ’24 said. “Every game in this league has the same meaning.”
Knowling, who led Yale with 19 points, added that the team wanted to focus on playing together. The Elis’ 20 assists matched a season high, setting up strong attempts on offense that allowed the team to record Yale’s second-best two-point percentage — 74.3 percent — since the 2001–2002 season, per college basketball ratings site KenPom. (Yale set its post-2002 record of 75 percent when it beat Kennesaw St. in Dec. 2017.)
Despite the offensive efficiency, head coach James Jones thought Yale’s defense could have been better. The Bulldogs’ 18 turnovers also marked their most in Ivy League play, though Columbia gave up the ball 23 times. According to KenPom, Yale’s defensive turnover percentage of 32.2, the percent of Lions possessions that ended in turnovers, was its seventh best in the last 20 years.
“My general thought is that we didn’t play our best game,” Jones said after the game, walking from Yale’s locker room down a long hallway at Levien Gym to greet spectating alumni and friends of the program back on the court. “I thought that our defense was somewhat soft in the first half, and I’ll give Columbia credit, they made a lot of tough shots. When you’re in first place, the stress of being there and continuing to hold that spot weighs on you a little bit. I felt that tonight.”
Jones added that there was a risk Saturday’s game against a young, eighth-place Lions team could be viewed as “a trap game,” especially given that it falls a weekend before Yale’s most difficult back-to-back of the regular season. “You’ve got all that stuff going on, and who knows what’s going through guys’ minds,” he said.
Knowling said the team tries not to focus on pressure that might stem from its first-place status and instead focuses on playing the game at hand. As long as Yale keeps winning, he said, the standings will take care of themselves.
The Columbia defense handled Yale’s offense much better than it did to start the teams’ last matchup, when the Bulldogs sprinted to a 20–2 lead. When Yale set an early screen at the top of the key for guard Azar Swain ’22, a Columbia defender lingered to double team. The Lions scored the first five points of the game and led 10–7 after a three from forward Noah Robledo.
First-year guard John Poulakidas ’25, who averaged under five minutes a game heading into New York on Saturday, ignited some scoring off the bench to help Yale build a lead. Entering the game with 8:53 to go, he hit deep shots from both corners and drew a foul on a successful midrange jumper to score eight straight for the Elis in the first half.
“Honestly, I go into every game with the same mentality — not expecting to play, but just being ready for any other opportunity,” Poulakidas, who played a career-high 16 minutes, said. “It was great the coaches left me in there. Maybe they saw something — I know I hit my first couple shots. That felt pretty good.”
Swain netted Yale’s next six to give the Bulldogs a 31–24 lead with 3:59 to play in the half, and the Bulldogs entered the break up 39–30.
Poulakidas said he considers his shooting and scoring to be the strongest aspects of his game. Jones said the first year was “certainly deserving of an opportunity” and noted that there have been times when Poulakidas has been Yale’s best player at practice.
“I wouldn’t say I get nervous, I would say maybe nervous excitement,” Poulakidas said of getting his name called off the bench. “I’ve played the game my whole life, so it’s not like I’m experiencing something that I’ve never felt before. It’s definitely different in the sense of getting on a college court and getting to play with that type of competition.”
Associate head coach Matt Kingsley had seen the 6-foot-5 guard compete during his recruitment, but Poulakidas is one of two rookies Jones had never seen play live before the first years moved onto campus last August. The other, starting guard Bez Mbeng ’25, helped Yale break open the second half on Saturday. Columbia scored the first seven points out of the break, cutting Yale’s lead to 39–37. Mbeng then put Yale up by four with a layup and went on to record two steals and two assists in less than a minute, including a fast-break pass to captain and guard Jalen Gabbidon ’22 for an and-one layup.
Mbeng’s first points of the half initiated a 16–3 run that lasted more than five minutes — Yale did not miss a shot during the stretch, while Columbia went one-for-nine from the field. The Bulldogs did not connect on only four shot attempts during the last 15:50 of the game, shooting an absurd 81 percent.
Starting forward Isaiah Kelly ’23 did not play or appear on the bench Saturday, and forward EJ Jarvis ’23 got the call in his absence, making a seamless transition into the starting five after averaging 24 minutes off the bench in the Bulldogs’ most recent two games against Harvard. Forward Yussif Basa-Ama ’24 was the first big man off the bench, and Jones said he felt confident in Jake Lanford ’23 and Luke Kolaja ’25 stepping up if post players in the rotation encountered foul trouble. Both Lanford and Kolaja ended up playing late in the second half once Yale’s lead had passed 20.
A number of other players, including starters Knowling, Swain and Gabbidon, wore surgical masks for the duration of the game. Jones said they were wearing them because of COVID-19 protocols.
Swain (17 points), Jarvis (10 points) and Poulakidas (10 points) scored in double figures alongside Knowling.
Update, Feb. 12: This story has been updated to include a full recap of Saturday afternoon’s game.
