Dominant Second Half From Bulldogs

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Yale's response to its first Ivy League loss couldn't have been much better. Justin Sears scored 31 points, matching his career high, to lead the Bulldogs to a very impressive 79-58 victory over Penn, quieting the crowd of 3,246 at a steamy Palestra.

Yale, which lost at Princeton on Friday, had a 37-32 lead at halftime and then turned in one of its best halves of the season to pull away. The Bulldogs were 16-of-27 from the field and held the Quakers to 7-of-28 over the final 20 minutes.

"Our defense was great, really gritty," said James Jones, The Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of the Bulldogs. "It was an unbelievable job for us to do that to a team that is really good offensively."

Yale (18-6, 9-1 Ivy) remains atop the league standings, a half-game ahead of Princeton (8-1). Columbia (8-2) also is in the hunt.

Sears, who was "held" to 15 points Friday at Princeton, was dominant in the second half. He made all seven of his shots and scored 18 of his points. He narrowly missed his second straight double-double, finishing with nine rebounds.

"I wasn't as decisive with the ball as I needed to be [last night]," Sears said. "I was aggressive [tonight] and it just came."

Sears had plenty of support. Brandon Sherrod added 15 points, Makai Mason scored nine and Nick Victor contributed four points, seven rebounds and seven assists. Sam Downey also played a key role off the bench, scoring eight points, grabbing four rebounds and playing solid low-post defense in 15 minutes. Anthony Dallier had six points and Eric Anderson scored four.

Freshman Trey Phills saw the most meaningful minutes of his young career, contributing two points, a rebound and an assist in 10 minutes.

Matt Howard (16 points) and Darien Nelson-Henry (15) combined to score 31 of Penn's points.

The Quakers, who had won four of five coming into the game, fell to 10-13 overall and 4-5 in Ivy play.

It looked like it might be a game that would go down to the wire early on. The Bulldogs had the lead for most of the first half but couldn't shake the pesky Quakers.

Penn stayed close early in the second half, pulling within two on a couple of occasions, but Yale seized control with a 12-2 run midway through the half that made it 59-45.

The Quakers never got closer than 10 the rest of the way and the lead grew to as many as 23.

Jones was never concerned about his team recovering from the loss at Princeton.

"Regardless of what happened last night, we knew we were going to have to win tonight," he said. "And we need to win next weekend and the weekend after that. We just go out and try to take care of business each night."

After managing only seven assists Friday at Princeton, the Bulldogs did a much better job of sharing the ball, finishing with 16 assists on 29 field goals.

Yale also took care of the ball, committing only eight turnovers after having 16 in the loss to Princeton.

NOTES: Sears also scored 31 points at Providence in his sophomore year… Yale outscored Penn 48-28 in the paint… The Bulldogs, who entered the night fourth in the nation in rebounding margin, won the battle of the boards 35-29… Penn was just 3-of-18 from three-point range… The Bulldogs were 20-of-28 from the free throw line… Yale has now won eight straight over the Quakers, including the last four meetings at The Palestra… After playing four straight road games, the Bulldogs return to the friendly confines of the John J. Lee Amphitheater next weekend, hosting Harvard on Friday at 7 p.m. and Dartmouth on Saturday at 8 p.m. The Harvard game will be televised on FoxSports1, while the Dartmouth game will air on the American Sports Network in addition to the Ivy League Digital Network… It will also be Alumni Weekend.