Yale, Quinnipiac set to kick off 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 Patterson 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.”
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 exhibitiongame 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.