NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Entering the second season with
Dalila Eshe as the team's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Basketball, the Yale women's basketball team returns a significant amount of production from last year. Five players who started 10 or more games last year are back – including the team's top four scorers, top four rebounders and top three in assists. That gives the Bulldogs reason for optimism as they look to make a move up in the league standings. They narrowly missed out on making the Ivy League Tournament in 2023, coming within one win of qualifying. The teams ahead of them in the league standings all went on to national postseason tournaments (one to the NCAA and three to the WNIT), indicating the depth of talent in the league.
Here is a position-by-position look at the Bulldogs heading into 2023-24:
Guards (two seniors, three juniors, three sophomores, one first year)
The Bulldogs' backcourt features a pair of seniors with extensive experience.
Klara Astrom has improved her shooting percentage each year of her career, and has been among the team's top four scorers each of the past two seasons. A threat both from deep (she was third on the team in three-pointers last year with 29) and on the drive, Astrom also finished among the team's top three in assists (29) and steals (29). She has 79 career games played, including 31 starts.
Senior
Jenna Clark, elected captain by her teammates, has been Yale's starting point guard since her sophomore season. A two-time second team All-Ivy League honoree, Clark relishes the opportunity to set her teammates up for baskets. Her 318 career assists rank her seventh in school history; 78 more would move her into second (
Kathleen Offer '96 holds the record, 546). She holds two of the top four single-season assist totals in Yale history: 160 from 2021-22 is first, 145 last year is fourth. Last year she led Yale in scoring at 10.9 points per game; the year before, she was second (11.2 ppg). Her senior year starts with a game in her hometown as the Bulldogs visit Pitt Nov. 7.
Junior
Mackenzie Egger, who can also play forward, appears ready to take another step up this season after earning 22 starts last year. She more than doubled her minutes per game from 2021-22 to 2022-23 (9.9 to 20.4) and improved her shooting percentage by more than 100 points. She was second on the team in blocked shots with 14 and showed an ability to contribute offensively multiple times, including six games in which she scored in double digits.
A full season from junior
Christen McCann could make a big difference for the Bulldogs. After finishing fourth on the team in points per game (7.8) her first year, McCann was limited to 13 games last year due to injury. She still managed to come on strong at the end of the year, shooting .480 over her final three games and averaging 10.7 points per game in that span. She is one of the team's best shooters from three-point range, shooting .395 from downtown last year.
Junior
Nyla McGill will aim to build on a breakthrough 2022-23 season that earned her Ivy League Co-Defensive Player of the Year honors. There wasn't much that McGill didn't do last year; she was second in the league in steals per game (2.6) and rebounds per game (8.9) and fourth in the league in shooting percentage (.497). She had eight double-doubles, including a 20 rebound, 17 point effort against Harvard Feb. 3 that left her four shy of Yale's single-game rebounding record. And those stats paint only part of the picture of what McGill brings to the Bulldogs; she also helps set the tone with her hustle and intensity.
Sophomore
Kiley Capstraw showed flashes of brilliance last season, including three games in which she scored 20+ points. She finished second on the team in scoring (9.2 points per game) and earned five Ivy League Rookie of the Week awards but remains driven to accomplish more. In addition to a .364 shooting percentage from three-point territory, she led the team in free throw shooting percentage (.882).
Sophomore
Lilah Grubman was sidelined by injury last year but was a two-time defensive player of the year selection for Syosset High. Classmate
Lola Lesmond is another player whose health could be key for the Bulldogs. She missed all but one game last year but was ranked No. 92 in the ESPN Top 100 for the Class of 2022 as a recruit.
Yale's lone first year,
Lucy Lynn (Liberty Lake, Wash.), brings impressive credentials to New Haven. The team captain at Gonzaga Prep, she was named one of the top point guards in Washington State by Scorebook Live. She was a Washington 4A all-star team selection last year and was first team Greater Spokane League as a junior and senior.
Forwards (two seniors, one junior, no sophomores, no first years)
Senior
Brenna McDonald finished last season on a roll, starting the final seven games and ending up as the Ivy League leader in blocks per game (1.1). She hit her last 10 free throws in a row, and her rebounds per 40 minutes average (8.9) ranked third on the team.
Senior
Haley Sabol has appeared in 39 career games and made eight starts. Though sidelined by injury, she remains an integral part of the team.
Like McDonald, junior
Grace Thybulle is 6-foot-3 and provides a valuable post presence for the Bulldogs. She appeared in 25 games last season, starting 10, and reached a career-high 16 points twice. She was second on the team in rebounds per 40 minutes (9.1).
Coaching Staff
Eshe returns for her second season after joining Yale from Princeton, where she spent three seasons as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator and helped the Tigers to a No. 24 national ranking and an Ivy League title. Assistant coach
Amber Raisner is also back for a second season.
New to the staff this year are assistant coaches
Helen Tau and
Hannah Early Vaughn and Director of Operations
Jehrin Colbert. Tau, who worked with Eshe at Princeton, joins the Bulldogs from Colgate. She helped the Raiders finish ninth in the nation in three-point percentage defense (.256) and 12th in the nation in points allowed per game (54.6) last year. Vaughn helped Connecticut College rank among the NESCAC's best defensive teams for the past two seasons, finishing fourth in points allowed per game each year (53.8 in 2022-23, 58.0 in 2021-22). Colbert spent the past four years working in an administrative role at UMass Dartmouth, and as an undergraduate she spent four seasons as a student manager with the Elmira women's basketball team.
Schedule
The regular season starts Tuesday at Pitt, with the home opener set for Saturday Nov. 11 vs. Saint Joseph's. In addition to 14 Ivy League games -- starting Jan. 6 at Harvard -- the Bulldogs have 13 non-league games.
All told, Yale will play in eight different states this season and face teams from eight conferences other than the Ivy League (ACC, Atlantic 10, Big East, CAA, MAAC, NEC, Patriot, West Coast). The Bulldogs will take on eight teams that won 20 or more games last year, playing a total of 11 games against those teams.
The Ivy League Women's Basketball Tournament features the top four teams in the regular season standings and takes place at Columbia in March. The winner of that tournament receives the league's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA has also announced an additional postseason tournament for 2024: the Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT). It will include 32 teams. The Postseason WNIT, which included three Ivy League teams last year, plans to continue as a 48 team tournament in 2024. The WBI (Women's Basketball Invitational), which Yale won in 2018, plans to continue as an eight-team, single-venue championship in 2024.
