This year's senior class has been one of the most successful on the court in the long history of Yale Basketball. Armani Cotton, Javier Duren, Greg Kelley and Matt Townsend have helped the Bulldogs to 71 victories entering this weekend, the most of any four-year stretch at Yale since 1908.

But what fans have seen at Lee Amphitheater is just a small part of what has made this class special. The four have flourished off the court as well. Townsend is a Rhodes Scholar, Duren started an organization whose goal is to curb the harmful drinking culture on campus, Kelley worked at GQ magazine and created/hosted his own radio show on WYBC and Cotton founded a basketball clinic that stresses the importance of academics.

"It's truly a blessing to represent such a prestigious university at a high level and play with some great guys," Duren said. "It's been amazing because I've been able to play with individuals who are just as skilled off the court as they are on. It's been great seeing their talents."

The four players aren't the only seniors who have made significant contributions to the program. Manager Will Manville has worked countless hours over the last four years to assist both the players and coaches.

The team's success started immediately upon their arrival. In their freshman year, the Bulldogs won 19 games and entered the final weekend of the regular season still in the race for the Ivy title. As sophomores, they helped Yale to its first sweep of the Penn-Princeton road trip in nearly 25 years. Last year they led Yale's run to the championship game of the CollegeInsider.com postseason tournament, and this season they orchestrated the upset of defending national champion UConn in Storrs.

Still, they hope the best is yet to come. The Bulldogs are again in the race for the Ivy title. They trail Harvard by one game with two weekends remaining and travel to Cambridge next Friday.

"We all motivate each other because we are a very close-knit group," said Kelley of the success. "We hold each other accountable and push one another to excel."

Kelley, the team captain, has played in 103 games for the Bulldogs but wasn't originally part of this class. He arrived at Yale in the fall of 2010 but suffered an injury and withdrew from school. This year he is fourth on the team with 20 three-pointers. Against NJIT, he scored 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds, both career highs. His leadership has played a key role in Yale's success.

Off the court, Kelley was a radio DJ for WYBC, Yale's student station, hosting a successful show that featured soul and R&B music. While working for GQ, he helped set up promotional events, including the GQ Gentlemen's Ball, and worked with Robin Thicke. He also sold souvenirs at Fenway Park in the summer of 2011.

Cotton, a three-year starter, has scored 660 points and grabbed 506 rebounds in his career. This year he is one of only three players to start all 27 games and posted double-doubles in the wins over Lafayette and Cornell. In his junior year, he averaged 10.1 points and 6.5 rebounds in 14 Ivy games and was the recipient of the team's Josh Hill Award for hard work and dedication to the Yale Basketball program.

Head Coach James Jones praised Cotton for his contributions after last Friday's win over Cornell.

"Armani flies under the radar," Jones said. "People don't understand how good he is and what he does for us."

Cotton is the founder of the DOSA (Division One Student Athlete) Basketball Clinic, a program that attempts to deflate the idea that being valedictorian and a star athlete are mutually exclusive. DOSA focuses on the values of hard work and discipline as well as basketball IQ and Division I skills in order to challenge campers intellectually and physically.

"I was just looking for a job in the summer, but it turned into something much more than that," Cotton told the New Haven Register of his involvement with DOSA. "It helped me from a leadership standpoint and made me more vocal as a person. It was my way to reconnect with the community and give back to all the things I've learned from basketball."

Townsend has been a force in the post throughout his time in New Haven. He has played in 105 games, including making 63 starts, and has a .512 career field goal percentage. This season, he leads the Ivy League with a .547 field goal percentage.

Townsend's success in the classroom has earned him a number of accolades, including the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship, one of only 30 awarded in the nation. On Thursday, he was named the men's basketball Academic All-American of the Year. He has maintained a 3.98 grade point average through seven semesters at Yale, and was elected to the Yale Phi Beta Kappa society as a junior.

Townsend, who has interned at New York Presbyterian Hospital, will spend the next two or three years after graduation at Oxford University in England studying medical anthropology and public policy. His career goal is in academic medicine treating obesity and diabetes and working on food policy to make it easier for people to make healthy choices.

Duren, a first team All-Ivy candidate, is eighth all-time at Yale with 302 career assists. He has played in 106 games in his career and has been a three-year starter. This season he is among the league leaders in several categories, including scoring (13.5 ppg.), assists (4.2 per game) and steals (1.6 per game). In the game with Harvard, he became the 27th player in school history to score 1,000 career points.

In November, Duren, who hopes to continue playing professionally after graduation, was nominated to the Allstate Good Works Team for his work with #TeamSober, an organization he co-founded to provide an alternative to the harmful drinking culture on the Yale campus. 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.

Cotton, Duren, Kelley and Townsend have all cherished their time with the Bulldogs.

"Yale Basketball has been the best experience of my life," says Townsend. "Competing on the court alongside my 14 brothers has not only taught me how to work hard for something much greater than the individual, but has also been just a whole lot of fun."

Added Kelley, "My teammates are all friends and brothers who I will cherish for the rest of my life. Yale Basketball has taught me about hard work, commitment, discipline and that success is not easy – you have to earn it."

Certainly something the Class of 2015 has accomplished. 

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