Last Saturday, Yale fell at Harvard 74-69, the Bulldogs’ first loss in this calendar year and the end of a 13-game winning streak. No other Division I team — not Auburn, not Duke, not any squad — has put together a winning streak of that length this season.
What, you didn’t know that? You’re not alone. “Did you see that anywhere?” Yale coach James Jones asked Hoops HQ. “If I hadn’t told you, would you have known it? No one knows. If it was Indiana who had the longest winning streak in the nation, that would have been on SportsCenter. People don’t believe we’re any good.”
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Seeing is believing and there will be plenty of eyes on Yale this month. The Bulldogs have become the powerhouse of the league, winning six conference titles in the last 10 years. Last year, as a No. 13 seed, they registered one of the most shocking upsets of the NCAA Tournament, knocking off No. 4 Auburn 78-76 in the first round. It was the second straight year the Ivy League won an NCAA Tournament game. In 2023, No. 15 seed Princeton took down No. 2 Arizona in 2023 and then beat No. 7 Missouri to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Yale also beat Baylor in the 2016 first round as a No. 13 seed. Since 2010, the Ivy has a respectable 6-7 record in March Madness.
After their shocking upset of Auburn, the Bulldogs saw top scorer Danny Wolf transfer to Michigan and major contributor Matt Knowling leave for USC. Improbably, they have come back stronger, currently 19-7 and 12-1 in conference this season. Yale is now No. 74 on KenPom. Last year’s team finished the season at No. 90. An Ivy League tournament victory this season would mark the third trip to the Big Dance in five years. That is a level of consistent success that many power conference teams would love to have.
“We’ve gotten to be so good that it’s really hard to play here as a freshman,” Jones said. “The culture of our program is you bust your butt and you work for an opportunity. Players that are frustrated they’re not getting opportunities, they work harder, and I think that’s really helped us. Kids don’t understand, how many ninth graders start on a varsity team?”
John Poulakidas, the Ivy League’s leading scorer who dropped 28 points in the Auburn upset, played five minutes a game as a freshman. Jones told him that he would eventually lead the team in scoring. Yale’s rotation of experienced players allows the younger players to see their future in older teammates.
“Danny Wolf is going to be an NBA lottery pick,” Jones said. “He didn’t play much as a freshman. (There was) a senior that was better than him at the time. When you’re a freshman, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Jones was hired in 1999 and has won at least 16 games every year since the 2013-2014 campaign. On Tuesday, Jones was nominated for the Hugh Durham Award, given to the top mid-major coach in college basketball.
The turning point came in 2016, when Yale took down Taurean Prince and fifth-seeded Baylor in a first-round NCAA Tournament upset. Makai Mason, who scored 31 points in that game and later was an All-Big-12 performer with the Bears, was one of the first players to show what Yale could be. Miye Oni came to the Bulldogs the following season and after winning Ivy League Player of the Year, he helped Yale return to the NCAA Tournament in 2019. He was drafted that summer and has carved out a professional career in the NBA and Europe.
Yale’s reputation has become so good that scheduling high-major non-conference opponents is extremely difficult. Last season, Yale led Kansas at halftime in Allen Fieldhouse. “When we played Bill Self, he said, ‘If we don’t win this game by 35, people are going to think there’s something wrong with us. People don’t know you guys are really good,’” Jones said. “It’s just perception. You read the name Yale and you don’t think we’re supposed to be any good.”
A friendship with Purdue head coach Matt Painter allowed Jones to schedule a game with the Boilermakers this season. That would have been the Bulldogs’ only test against a “power conference” foe until Wolf announced he was transferring. A trip to Minnesota was added. “We had been in contact with them before, and they wanted no part of us,” Jones said. “But as soon as Danny Wolf left, they asked to play us. My only point is we’re really good.”
While Jones garners immense respect from other coaches, other schools don’t seem to be noticing the job he’s done in 26 years. Opportunities to leave Yale for a better program with more resources simply haven’t been there, he says, much to the surprise of those around him.
“This is a great place,” Jones said. “There are so many great things about it. It just makes it hard to get to a Final Four from Yale because of the lack of resources that we have. We spent 1.5 million dollars on basketball and (Auburn) spent 13.8 million, and that’s not counting NIL. I’m not certain that our product will be able to be sustained given our current climate (in college sports).”
If the Bulldogs can pull off another March Madness memory, then the nation may finally start paying attention to what Jones has been doing in New Haven for the last two decades. It might even springboard him into a power conference job, but if it doesn’t, he knows he can stay where he is and keep winning in all the important ways.
“My favorite part is the relationship I have with my guys after they graduate,” Jones said. “To receive the holiday cards from my guys and watch their families grow. I have a picture of every kid that’s graduated in my office, and I’m reminded of them every day.”
