Bulldogs Fall One Game Behind Harvard

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Yale overcame an off shooting night in Friday's win over Cornell. The Bulldogs weren't as fortunate 24 hours later against Columbia.

Yale was just 19-of-52 overall from the field, 5-of-22 from three-point range and 7-of-16 from the foul line against the Lions. The result was a 56-50 Columbia victory that dropped the Bulldogs into second place in the Ivy League.

Yale (19-8 overall) sits 8-2 in Ivy play, one game behind Harvard (9-1). The Crimson used a second-half rally to beat Princeton 63-55.

"Our biggest problem shooting was from the free throw line," said James Jones, The Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Men's Basketball. "You can't miss free throws, and we did."

Three of the misses came as the Bulldogs were cutting into a 16-point second-half Columbia lead. Yale trailed 42-26 with 15:41 left, but outscored the Lions 15-2 over the next 10 minutes to pull within three.

Columbia (13-11, 5-5 Ivy) answered by scoring the next five points, the big blow a three-pointer from the wing by Luke Petrasek with 3:10 left. The Bulldogs closed within six on an Armani Cotton jumper, but Kyle Castlin then made a driving layup with the shot clock winding down.

Matt Townsend's three-pointer with 10 seconds left closed the gap to four, but Castlin's dunk off a long in-bounds feed from Isaac Cohen sealed it.

Maodo Lo paced Columbia with 18 points, while Cory Osetkowski added 10.

Javier Duren led the Bulldogs with 13 points and Townsend scored 11. Yale's leading scorer Justin Sears was held to seven points.

"Columbia did an excellent job protecting the paint," Jones said. "They were physical with Justin and they always had bodies around him."

The Lions also won the battle of the boards, outrebounding Yale 39-30.

The Bulldogs play their final two home games of the season next weekend. Yale hosts Princeton on Friday and Penn on Saturday. Both are 7 p.m. tips.

NOTES: Yale committed just one turnover in the second half… Cotton finished with seven points and Jack Montague and Makai Mason each contributed six… Yale shot 43.1 percent from the field in Friday's 62-51 win over Cornell… #TeamSober, an organization co-founded by Duren to provide an alternative to the harmful drinking culture on the Yale campus, held an "Orange Out" at the game. Based on a twitter hashtag, #TeamSober seeks to provide a community of individuals who enjoy having fun at social functions but are comfortable and confident with themselves to not feel as if they have to consume alcohol in order to be accepted by their peers. Each member is held accountable by a pledge which they must sign at the beginning of each school year stating they will abstain from the consumption of alcohol if they are under 21 but allows drinking in moderation for those over 21 years of age.

Report filed by Tim Bennett (timothy.bennett@yale.edu), Yale Sports Publicity