Bulldogs lose, fall into tie atop Ivy standings

NEW HAVEN — A night after clinching a spot in the Ivy League conference tournament, Yale simply struggled for most of Saturday night.

With a chance to remain all alone in first place in the Ivy League race, the Bulldogs dropped a 83-75 decision to Columbia (9-17) at the Payne Whitney Gymnasium.

With one weekend left and games at both Penn and Princeton, the Bulldogs can still grab the regular season title in the Ivy League but will now need help to do it as Harvard tied them at 9-3 atop the standings. However, the Crimson, who beat Princeton Saturday night, hold the tiebreaker having beaten Yale twice in February.

What killed Yale more than anything was a cold shooting night. The Bulldogs were just 22 of 58 (38 percent) from the field and 5 of 22 from behind the arc.

“We just didn’t make shots,” Yale coach James Jones said. “You play 30 games a year and you’re not going to shoot 50 percent in every game. On nights like this we have to be better defensively.”

It was far from an auspicious start for Yale as the visiting Lions scored the first 12 points of the night as the Bulldogs missed their first five shots of the game. Meanwhile, Columbia grabbed a 20-5 lead with 13:28 remaining in the first half after a threepointer from the right side by Tai Bibbs.

But the Bulldogs, looking for their 20th win for the third time in the last five seasons, went on a 15-2 run with an Azar Swain layup closing the gap to 22-20 with 8:59 left in the first half.

However, right before the end of the first half, Columbia had another big spurt. This time it was a 10-4 run, which gave The Lions a 44-31 edge at the break.

The biggest problem for the Bulldogs is they struggled from the floor over the first 20 minutes, shooting just 38 percent from the floor (10-for-26) and just 1-for-7 from three-point land.

Meanwhile, Quintin Adlesh was on fire for Columbia as he connected on 6-of-10 shots from the field, including 2-of-4 from behind the arc for 14 points in the first half.

The beginning of the second half was much like the first as Yale again missed it first five shots from the field. Meanwhile, Columbia grabbed its largest lead, 54-38, with 14:27 remaining in the game.

Down again by 18 points, 66-48, with 8:07 to go, Yale started using a diamond press that gave Columbia fits. The Bulldogs went on a 17-4 run with Swain’s trey from the top of the ley with 2:53 remaining making it 70-65.

Yale then went cold over the next two minutes with both Swain and Trey Phills missing three-pointers.

Adlesh then put the dagger into the heart of Yale with a trey of his own with 50 seconds to play to give Columbia a 73-65 lead.

Yale was able to cut the lead to 76-72 on a 25-footer from the right side by Swain with 12.4 seconds left but by then it was too late.