Yale, Quinnipiac ready to tip off their seasons in style

Who says Connecticut isn’t the capital of the basketball world?

Over the next couple of days, Yale will kick off its 2018-19 season in China, while Quinnipiac will start things off against the defending national champions.

Oh, and Jim Calhoun returns to the sidelines as a head coach again, too, when he leads Division 3 University of Saint Joseph into its first-ever game on Friday at 7:30 p.m. against William Paterson University at Trinity College’s Ray Oosting Gymnasium.

On Friday at 11 p.m. (noon in China), Yale will face California in the annual Pac-12 China Game in Shanghai, China. The Bulldogs have been in China for about a week, beating a Chinese University All-Star team 93-84 (despite being outshot at the foul line, 38-9!) and learning as much as they can about the country’s culture.

“They’re seeing things they’ve never seen before,” said coach James Jones. “The university did a good job in preparing them with four classes talking about Chinese culture, learning different words, meanings. There’s a lot of learning going on.”

On Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Quinnipiac will face defending national champ Villanova in both teams’ season-opener. Second-year Bobcat coach Baker Dunleavy played at Villanova and was Jay Wright’s associate head coach for several years, including in 2016, when Villanova also won the national title.

Villanova lost four players to the NBA draft, but still have some key veterans back along with a highly-rated recruiting class coming in. The Wildcats are currently ranked No. 9 in the nation.

“Any time you’re playing the defending national champion,

whether they’ve lost guys or not, it’s a challenge,” Dunleavy said. “We have to embrace it, enjoy it. It’s probably the greatest test we can get. We’ll measure ourselves not on the final score, but on the whole 40 minutes — stay aggressive, keep going at them, play hard and let’s see what happens at the end. We’ll be glad we played Villanova, because it’ll get us better and more prepared for the rest of our schedule.”

Here’s two season previews for the price of one:

YALE

The Bulldogs were picked to finish third in the Ivy League preseason coaches’ poll. Harvard (which recently beat UConn in a closed-door scrimmage) was tabbed to win the league, followed by Penn. Princeton rounded out the top four.

As usual, Jones doesn’t pay much heed to the preseason “experts.”

“We’ve outkicked our coverage, finished higher in the standings (than picked) in 12 of the last 13 years, something like that,” the 20th-year head coach noted. “I don’t give much thought to the prognosticators. Once you hit the court, you see how good you are.”

Yale has the chance to be very good, Makai Mason may now be a grad transfer at Baylor, but just about everyone else is back, along with the return of talented forward Jordan Bruner, who missed all of his sophomore season last year with a knee injury.

Miye Oni, a 6-foot-6 junior guard, is a legit Ivy League player of the year candidate. He led the Bulldogs in scoring (15.1 ppg), rebounding (6.0) and assists (3.6) a year ago, and could someday be playing at the next level.

Senior Trey Phills, a second-team all-Ivy pick last season, also has the ability to take over a game.

“He’s our quiet assassin,” said Jones. “He just goes about his business, but there were stretches last year where he was our best player.”

Bruner, a 6-9 junior, was one of the most highlytouted recruits in program history a few years ago. He’s still shaking off some rust.

“He gets better every day,” said Jones. “He’s had some spectacular moments in practice, but he’s working on being consistent. The speed of the college game, he hasn’t had that in a year or so. He’s just starting to get himself back. My expectation is that before long, he will be back to what he’s capable of.”

Alex Copeland and Blake Reynolds, who both scored in double figures last season, are also back, along with Paul Atkinson, Azar Swain and Eric Monroe. And the Bulldogs welcome a strong freshman class led by Matthue Cotton, who scored a team-high 19 points in the exhibition-game win.

Yale will play its typically tough non-conference schedule, including at Memphis on Nov. 17 and at Duke on Dec. 8. And, of course, if the Bulldogs finish in the top four and make the Ivy League tourney, they’ll be playing at home. This year’s tournament will be played at Lee Amphitheater.

QUINNIPIAC

The Bobcats got great news over the summer when Cameron Young, who set a school record for most points in a season last year as a senior, was granted a waiver by the NCAA for another year. Young barely played his junior year, though not because of injury, punishment or anything else.

Quinnipiac also brings back its second-leading scorer, Shelton’s Rich Kelly, a MAAC All-Rookie team honoree last season. Kelly hurt his MCL in a scrimmage with Princeton recently and may not play against Villanova, but the injury isn’t expected to keep him sidelined too long.

Other key returnees include Jacob Ragoni, Andrew and Aaron Robinson and Abdulai Bundu, the consummate “glue guy” who was second on the team in rebounding (5.8) a year ago.

“He’s kind of the identity of the team,” Dunleavy said. “He’s the toughest guy on the court, and he’s bought into everything we’ve tried to instill.”

The Bobcats will also welcome a pair of players, Kevin Marfo and Travis Atson, who had to sit out last year after transferring from George Washington and Tulsa, respectively. The top freshman should be Tyrese Williams out of Philadelphia.

“Statistically, we bring back key pieces and add a bunch of new ones, through transfer or freshmen,” Dunleavy said. “Throughout he country, even at Kentucky, when you add pieces, expecting things to be sharp from Day One is a little unrealistic. We hope to be at the point in our program soon where we get five or six guys back and can be very good from the start. That’s what we want to build.”

RIM RATTLING

⏩ Quinnipiac recently got a commitment from Brendan Maguire, a 6-7 wing/forward from St. Thomas More.