In the 2001-02 season Yale surprised the Ivy League basketball world by tying Penn and Princeton for the Ancient Eight championship with a bunch of tenacious freshmen. It was Yale's first title since 1963.
If the Bulldogs are to have similar success this year, they will have to depend on a cast of seasoned veterans and unproven freshmen. They (8-7) are led by fifth-year senior center Dominick Martin, junior forward Sam Kaplan, and junior guard Casey Hughes.
At the same time, five Yale freshmen are contributing 11.4 of 68.2 points, 5.5 rebounds and 44.6 minutes off the bench. The newcomers and the team as a whole will need to improve drastically if they are to find success.
Yale went through a relatively unchallenging non-conference schedule. To date, the team has a strength of schedule rating of 275 out of 334 Division I teams. But coach James Jones does not care about statistical ratings.
"I think that we've played some quality teams in the non-conference schedule," Jones said. "I think we've been challenged, I think we're prepared to play."
Yale certainly has faced a few challenging teams, including Kansas. But its 8-7 record is nothing to write home about, especially given losses to Hartford (5-8) and James Madison (3-9). In addition, seven of the Bulldogs' wins are against teams with losing records.
Jones believes that the balance of his team is its strength down low. Yale is certainly strong in its frontcourt with Martin, Kaplan and Hughes contributing a combined 32.6 points and 16.5 boards per game. The starting backcourt -- consisting of sophomores Eric Flato and Nick Holmes -- adds 16.2 points and 5.2 assists per game.
The Elis were picked to finish fifth in the preseason media poll. Nevertheless, Jones has tremendous faith in his team to compete with the best of them.
"I expect that we will have a chance to win every game we play," he said.
