CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Yale was so close to making the Ivy League race a little more interesting on Friday night. They entered the evening quietly a game behind Harvard in the standings, and at times looked like they would be able to get into a tie for second by the end of the night. But the Crimson made enough plays down the stretch after gaining the lead late, and Yale suffered a tough 78-75 loss that certainly qualifies as a missed opportunity.
After sweeping both games last weekend to move to 4-2 in the Ivy League, with this game beckoning, Yale served notice that they planned on contending in a league thought by many to be coming down to Harvard and Princeton for the title. The Bulldogs have gotten their act together in 2011, going 6-2 since the calendar flipped over after finishing 2010 with three straight losses. That made Friday’s game against 5-1 Harvard a big one, and certainly bigger than many might have imagined.
Yale got off to a good start and controlled the game for most of the 40 minutes. It was a game played within an 11-point window, although there was one point where it looked like it could get away from Yale in the second half. Greg Mangano picked up his third foul just a few minutes in, and Harvard went up 46-40 and appeared to have all the momentum with a 7-0 run. But James Jones kept Mangano in at first, and it lit a fire under the emerging big man as he blocked two shots, banked home a three-pointer, made a good post move for a layup and drew a travel on Keith Wright before Jones sat him for a few minutes. Suddenly, the Bulldogs were very much in the game and down 46-45.
“He’s a competitor, and he knows how much this game meant,” Jones said of his junior big man.
When Mangano picked up his fourth foul later, the Bulldogs didn’t go away while he had to sit. In fact, they led on a couple of occasions as they teams largely traded baskets and empty possessions. The game went back and forth much of the night, and that was especially the case once Yale rallied from the aforementioned six-point deficit.
There were plenty of good developments to come out of Friday’s game. Mangano has been in foul trouble often this season, fouling out four times and averaging over three fouls per game, but played very well with three and four fouls. He finished with 19 points on 7-11 shooting and three blocked shots, and continues to have a breakout season as he averages a near double-double. Chief among the reasons is health, as he looked to be en route to doing this a year ago at times, but a broken foot in the off-season slowed him at first and didn’t help with his consistency.
Helping Mangano out was freshman Jeremiah Kreisberg, who had a big game with 12 points and 10 rebounds and was a live body at both ends of the floor. He had a chance to tie the game with under a minute to play as he was in position for a stickback, but it rimmed out and the Crimson made enough free throws to seal the game.
Jones said he had a conversation with Kreisberg about his offense, and part of it centered around the fact that with Mangano as the clear go-to guy, Kreisberg has to work harder to get the ball. Because he’s the complementary player in the post, plays won’t be run for him as often, and sometimes a player like that needs to find the ball on the offensive glass or in the form of loose balls. Kreisberg did that on Friday as six of his ten rebounds were on the offensive end.
“He can rebound every night,” said Jones. “Nobody’s stopping him from rebounding the ball, so he’s got to do a better job of doing that for us.”
Austin Morgan also continued his resurgence on Friday as he scored a game-high 22 points. More importantly, he did it in part by going 4-4 from deep, putting up shots in the flow of the offense. Morgan had been in a slump prior to the Princeton game two weeks ago, then had a good two games last weekend as well. His numbers are down in Ivy League play from the rest of the season, but he appears to be en route to reversing that trend. With the good post play the Bulldogs are establishing with Mangano and Kreisberg, along with Rhett Anderson showing signs of progress, good perimeter shooting will certainly go a long way to helping the offense.
The Bulldogs now have to bounce back at Dartmouth on Saturday night. If they do that, they remain in good position to challenge in the Ivy League. The remaining schedule after this weekend has four of six games at home, with the toughest road games behind them. They have two straight home weekends ahead, including a rematch with Harvard in two weeks. It’s one more reason Jones is optimistic going forward, and not just in a coach-speak fashion.
“The schedule comes back to us a little bit,” said Jones. “All the tough games in the league we’ve played, we had to play on the road, so now we get to play them in our building. We lose to Harvard by three, we lost to Princeton by four, we lose to Penn by eight. Now we feel like we can play with everybody, and we can make a run.”
It all starts with bouncing back, and continuing to get better. The Bulldogs have done some of both this season. They’re very much in the hunt, much as Friday night was a missed opportunity.
