PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Yale men's basketball team will enter the Ivy League Tournament with a bunch of positive momentum. And as Ivy League regular season champions.
Bez Mbeng scored 27 points on 10-of-12 shooting from the field as the Bulldogs wrapped up the regular season with an 84-75 victory over Brown, disappointing the sellout crowd of 2,003 at the Pizzitola Center.
Yale will be the No. 1 seed in next weekend's Ivy Tournament at Princeton. The Bulldogs meet No. 4 Cornell on Saturday at 11 a.m. at Jadwin Gym.
It is Yale's third regular season championship in the last four seasons, the fifth since 2015 and sixth under
James Jones, The Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of the Bulldogs. And last year when the Bulldogs finished second in the regular season, they won the Ivy Tournament to earn the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
"Our seniors have won four championships, which is incredible to think about," Jones said. "It's a wonderful feeling. To be able to win on the road in a hostile environment shows the character of the guys in our locker room."
As has been the case throughout the season, there were a number of contributors.
John Poulakidas (14 points),
August Mahoney (12) and
Yassine Gharram (10) joined Mbeng in double figures.
Danny Wolf scored eight points,
Isaiah Kelly added six,
EJ Jarvis contributed five points and a team-high eight rebounds, and
Jack Molloy scored two points and grabbed eight rebounds.
Michael Feinberg added three rebounds off the bench.
The Bulldogs shot 55.1 percent from the field in the game and were 23-of-32 from the free throw line. In addition, Yale's bench outscored Brown's reserves 20-11.
Early on, it looked the Bulldogs might cruise to a victory. They had a 14-point lead, 23-9, midway through the first half. Brown, though, rallied and Yale's lead was only one, 34-33, at halftime.
It stayed close until midway through the second half when the Bulldogs used a 10-1 spurt to go ahead by 11. The Bears got back within five on a couple of occasions but no closer.
The big crowd came to the Pizzitola Center hoping to see Brown clinch the No. 4 seed in the Ivy Tournament, but instead Cornell earns the spot after its win over Columbia earlier in the day.
"It was an unbelievable college environment," Jones said. "Our guys played really tough. We did some things out of character to let them back in the game, but we hunkered down and made the right plays down the stretch."
Paxson Wojcik scored 25 points to pace the Bears (14-13, 7-7 Ivy).
The Bulldogs have won nine of their last 10 games.
Yale (20-7, 10-4 Ivy) has now posted 20 or more victories in three of the last four seasons and has won 10 or more Ivy games in each of the last four seasons.
Yale and Cornell split two games during the regular season with each team winning on their home floor.
Next Saturday's game will be televised nationally on ESPNU.
