NEW HAVEN, Conn. – With back-to-back Ivy League road wins, the Yale women's basketball team has built some momentum to make a push for one of the four spots in the Ivy League Tournament. The Bulldogs currently sit in a tie for fifth place, one game behind fourth-place Brown. They play the team they are tied with, Penn, on Friday (7:00 p.m.,
ESPN+,
International Stream,
Live Stats,
Tickets). They then host first-place No. 24 Princeton Saturday (6:00 p.m.,
ESPN+,
International Stream,
Live Stats,
Tickets) Six games remain in the regular season.
Last Game
Yale (6-15, 3-5 Ivy League)
won 66-59 at Cornell last Saturday. Senior guard
Jenna Clark (Pittsburgh, Pa.) led Yale in points (18) and added five rebounds, playing all 40 minutes and drawing seven Big Red fouls. Senior forward
Brenna McDonald (Natick, Mass.) added 14 points and three blocks, while junior guard
Nyla McGill (Charlotte, N.C.) had seven assists, six rebounds and six steals.
Oh, You Again
A quirk in the Ivy League schedule has Yale facing Penn twice in a three-game span and Princeton twice in five games. In contrast, there will be 11 games in between Yale's first meeting with Brown (Jan. 13) and final meeting with the Bears (Mar. 9). Here is a breakdown of the number of games in between Yale's two games against each Ivy League opponent:
- Brown: 11 games in between meetings
- Columbia: 9 games in between meetings
- Dartmouth: 6 games in between meetings
- Cornell: 3 games in between meetings
- Harvard: 3 games in between meetings
- Princeton: 3 games in between meetings
- Penn: 1 game in between meetings
Back on the Boards
Yale has outrebounded its opponent in each of the last two games, snapping a streak of four straight games in which the Bulldogs got outrebounded.
The Magic Number
Since the current version of the Ivy League Tournament began in 2016-17 (the top four teams in the regular season standings make the tournament), here is a list of how often teams with various league win totals have made the four-team field:
- 14 league wins 2/2 (100%)
- 13 league wins 1/1 (100%)
- 12 league wins 6/6 (100%)
- 11 league wins 1/1 (100%)
- 10 league wins 2/2 (100%)
- 9 league wins 6/6 (100%)
- 8 league wins 3/3 (100%)
- 7 league wins 2/6 (33%)
- 6 league wins 1/5 (20%)
- 5 league wins or fewer 0/16 (0%)
Crime Does Pay
Yale had a season-high 15 steals in Saturday's win at Cornell. That was their most in a game since notching 18 steals in a 68-56 win vs. Cornell Jan. 14, 2023.
Re-Writing the Record Book
With 121 assists this season, senior guard
Jenna Clark (Pittsburgh, Pa.) now has three of the top 10 assist totals in Yale history. Her ranks:
- 1. 160 assists (2021-22)
- 4. 145 assists (2022-23)
- 10. 121 assists (2023-24)
Clark leads the Ivy League in assists – putting her in position to become the first player to lead the Ivy League in assists for three straight years since Harvard's Brogan Berry did so from the 2009-10 season through the 2011-12 season.
McGill Picks Up the Pace
Junior guard
Nyla McGill (Charlotte, N.C.), last year's Ivy League Co-Defensive Player of the year, has 10 steals and 19 rebounds in the last two games. She is now tied for second in the league in steals per game (2.1) and is sixth in the league in rebounds per game (7.0). Last year she was second in the league in steals per game (2.6) and second in rebounds per game (8.9).
Ivy League Action this Friday
- 6:00 p.m. Columbia at Dartmouth
- 6:00 p.m. Cornell at Harvard
- 7:00 p.m. Penn at Yale
- 7:00 p.m. No. 24 Princeton at Brown
Ivy League Action this Saturday
- 4:00 p.m. Cornell at Dartmouth
- 5:00 p.m. Penn at Brown
- 6:00 p.m. No. 24 Princeton at Yale
Ivy League Action this Sunday
- 2:00 p.m. Columbia at Harvard
Upcoming Promotions at Lee Amphitheater
Friday is Equality Day and Saturday is Play4Kay Day, including a breast cancer awareness t-shirt giveaway.
Scouting Penn
Penn (11-10, 3-5 Ivy League) has lost four of its last five, including a
74-68 OT loss to the Bulldogs at the Palestra Feb. 3. The Quakers have already matched their Ivy League loss total from last season (five) and are in danger of missing out on an Ivy League Tournament spot for just the second time since the current version of the tournament debuted in 2016-17.
Scouting No. 24 Princeton
No. 24 Princeton (18-3, 8-0 Ivy League), which plays at Brown Friday, beings a 13 game winning streak into the weekend. The Tigers are ranked No. 32 in the latest NCAA NET Rankings. They lead the Ivy League in field goal percentage (.457), three-point percentage (.335), turnover margin (4.71), turnovers forced per game (17.8) and fewest turnovers per game (13.0).
Social Media
