The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Final home weekend
Jordan Bruner relishing his last days at Yale
NEW HAVEN — Jordan Bruner, the coveted South Carolina high school recruit who decided in November 2015 the Ivy League was best for him, will play his final home games this weekend at Payne Whitney Gymnasium.
Penn on Friday night. Princeton on Saturday, when he is honored alongside Eric Monroe and Austin Williams on Senior Night.
From there every shot, every rebound, every assist by the guy who coach James Jones has long called “a triple-double waiting to happen,” will arrive away from Yale. Next weekend at
Dartmouth and Harvard to conclude a satisfying regular season, the Ivy League Tournament to follow at Harvard with hopes of a return to the NCAA Tournament.
“Most definitely it has flown by,” Bruner said Thursday. “Yet at the same time, it has been a long time coming.”
He had narrowed his decision while at Spring Valley High in Columbia, S.C., to Tennessee, Georgia, Temple, Clemson and Yale. The first three, Bruner said, he couldn’t see himself at, so he took only two official visits before he sat down with his family.
“We thought about it in totality and came up with the idea that the best thing for my future was coming here,” Bruner, an economics major, said. “Clemson and Yale are two very different places, but I think I could have fit in at either place.”
Jones no longer has to call Bruner “a triple-double waiting to happen.” It happened. Last weekend at Cornell, the 6-foot-9 senior forward, long, explosive, versatile, unselfish, had 14 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists in an 81-80 doubleovertime victory.
“We needed every stat of that triple-double to win the game,” Jones said.
The triple-double was the first in Yale history and only the fourth in the Ivy League.
“It was great, something I wanted to do for a long time,” Bruner said. “I’ve been close multiple times, but nobody cares if you’re close.
“I’m going to play the same way every game. I could have finished with no assists if my teammates didn’t hit shots. I’m just grateful the stat-line showed my teammates helped me succeed.”
Bruner leads the Ivy League at 9.1 rebounds and is fourth in assists and second in blocks to go with 11.3 points a game.
Now, four years later, Jordan Bruner has another decision to make.
Will he become a graduate-transfer and play for a major conference school next season? There has
been chatter UConn and North Carolina could be interested. Certainly, there would be many more.
Or does Bruner turn pro?
“Right now, I’m focused on the season and getting my guys to win an Ivy League championship and then see what we can do in the Tournament,” Bruner said. “I haven’t really come to any conclusions in terms of what I’ll be doing after this season.
“I haven’t lined anything up (as far as a timetable for talking to his family and the coaching staff). I don’t even know when my season will end. I hope it’s April celebrating with my team. We’ll go from there.”
Both college and pro are on the table though?
“Most definitely,” Bruner said.
His coach was more definitive.
“I think he is going to try to become a professional basketball player,” Jones said.
So you think he’ll go pro? “Yeah, I think that’s what he wants to do,” Jones said. “I think that’s what he should do. You have limited number of years to play this game. I think he’s going to try to go out and experience something special for him. Something he always dreamed about, being a professional basketball player.”
Do you think he’s ready for that challenge?
“Oh, certainly,” Jones said. “One-hundred percent.”
There is only one conference in the NCAA that require students use all four years of their athletic eligibility in their first eight semesters of enrollment. It is the Ivy League. While the ideal that academics is the primary emphasis is a noble one, the idea that an athlete who sits out a year with an injury while attending school cannot return for a fifth season bothers me.
The Ivy League policy states that students who have completed a “baccalaureate or equivalent degree” are not eligible to play sports. Students who complete their degrees quicker than four years are eligible to compete during their four years if they attend graduate school at the same school.
A waiver, not always easy to obtain, can be approved by the conference.
“(Bruner) could return if he was granted extra semesters if he changed his major,” Jones said. “There is a possibility that can happen. But, certainly, it’s hardship when a young man wants to stay at a school and play, that the rules have it that it won’t happen.”
There have been a few cases where Ivy League schools have suspended athletes for cheating, they were allowed back and were able to compete in sports for four years.
It’s not a perfect rule. Don’t let anyone tell you it is.
“It’s not my place to think about the rule,” Bruner said. “Most of the rules I’ve come across were in place when I came and they’ll be in place when I leave.”
So you live with the rules.
“James Jones can’t change the rule,” Jones said. “It is what it is. You have to live with it.”
If anyone has learned to live with and overcome disappointment, it is Bruner. He tore his meniscus and missed his junior year at high school. He sprained his ACL early in his freshman year at Yale, missing a handful of games, and still averaged 8.4 points and 5.6 rebounds. He injured his meniscus again in a postseason workout. He injured his knee a fourth time blocking a shot in a closed scrimmage against BU in the fall of 2017. He sat out his sophomore year.
“The hardest part was mentally overcoming that fact that I had worked so hard to play this game and I wasn’t able to do so for such a long period of time,” Bruner said. “Now I know I can get through anything. I feel everything happens for a reason, so the injuries I went through
I had to learn something from them. I challenged myself to do that instead of focusing on not being able to play.”
Bruner could have taken a leave from school for a year, returned and been found eligible next year. Ah, those Ivy League loopholes.
“I didn’t consider it at all,” Bruner said. “It didn’t seem like an option for me. I wanted to be around my teammates, continue to cheer them on. I was in a groove in terms of school. Dropping out for a year didn’t seem like the right thing for me.”
Are you happy with that decision?
“Most definitely,” he said. “You can’t get time back in life. The year I spent with those guys, the seniors, I wouldn’t have had that if I didn’t stay in school. I don’t regret it.”
Bruner would return with a flourish as a junior, averaging 10.4 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 1.5 blocks. With the since graduated Miya Oni, Trey Phillis and Alex Copeland, it also was a different team that got to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in four years.
“Last year we were very talented in a raw way,” Bruner said. “Our talent could overcome a lot of things if we weren’t disciplined. It was a lot of fun to play with those guys. We were fast. We got out and ran. This year we’re a more defensive-minded team, more disciplined. It makes us more cohesive. We make sure to buckle down.”
For a coach it helps to have one senior who is so versatile, a Swiss Army knife.
“Jordan has had a tremendous impact both on and off the floor,” Jones said. “A very vocal leader, great basketball IQ, always teaching and helping his teammates out. He does so many different things for us.”