First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky ace the test presented by Ivy League power Yale?
A look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
No. 19 Kentucky (6-2) will face Yale (8-1) Saturday (Dec. 10) at Rupp Arena.
The game will tip off at 1 p.m. (EST) and be telecast by the SEC Network.
Before coming to Lexington, Yale will play at Butler on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. in a game that will be telecast by FS1.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Yale 1-0.
Most recent meeting
Larry Pursiful rifled in 25 points, Cotton Nash had a double-double with 16 points and 16 rebounds and Carroll Burchett chipped in 16 points and eight boards as Coach Adolph Rupp’s Wildcats blitzed Yale 79-58 on Dec. 27, 1961, at Memorial Coliseum.
Power rankings
The CBS version of the NET Rankings have Kentucky No. 9, Yale No. 149.
In the Kenpom Ratings, Kentucky stands No. 6, Yale No. 90.
The Sagarin Ratings have Kentucky No. 19, Yale No. 57.
Know your foe
1. Over the past four seasons, Yale has been the Ivy League’s best men’s basketball program. The Bulldogs represented the conference in the NCAA Tournament in 2019 and again in 2022. Yale won the Ivy League regular-season title in 2019-20, too, before the college basketball season was shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic and the efforts to contain it.
The Ivy League did not play basketball in 2020-21.
Yale is 72-28 since the start of the 2018-19 season.
2. Only the late Pete Carril, the iconic, former Princeton head man, has won more games at an Ivy League school (514) than Yale’s James Jones (359-293) has done in his 24 years leading the Bulldogs program.
Jones has won the Ivy League regular-season title five times and the league tournament title twice.
In 2015-16, Jones coached No. 12 seed Yale to a 79-74 upset of No. 5 seed Baylor in the NCAA Tournament round of 64. It was the first men’s NCAA tourney victory for Yale in school history. The Bulldogs fell to No. 4 seed Duke, 71-64, in the round of 32.
3. The 2022-23 Yale Bulldogs start three guards, shoot the ball well and make good use of the three-point line. Yale’s regular starting lineup goes 6-foot-4, 6-4, 6-5, 6-6, 6-7, and the Bulldogs’ sixth man is 6-8.
Junior forward Matt Knowling is Yale’s top scorer (17.3 ppg), followed by guard John Poulakidas (11.4), a 6-5 sophomore, big man EJ Jarvis (9.6), a 6-8 senior, and guard August Mahoney (8.3), a 6-4 junior.
As a team, Yale is making 49.8 percent of its field-goal tries and 34.9 percent of its three-point attempts.
