NEW YORK (AP) — Yale finally ended its long NCAA Tournament drought with a 71-55 victory over the Columbia men's basketball team Saturday night.
Maodo Lo scored 21 points to lead Columbia (21-10, 10-4). The Lions are in the midst of one of the most successful seasons in school history. They already have the most regular season wins in program history since the 1950-51 season when Columbia won 23 games. The Lions were trying to win 11 league games for the first time since 1978.
The Lions are in strong position to qualify for a postseason tournament. More details will follow next weekend.
They honored seniors Lo, Alex Rosenberg, Isaac Cohen and Grant Mullins before the game. The quartet is the winningest class for Columbia since 1953.
Makai Mason scored 22 and Brandon Sherrod added 13 to lead Yale to a 71-55 victory over Columbia on Saturday night, clinching the Bulldogs' first NCAA bid since 1962.
The Bulldogs shared the Ivy championship last year with Harvard, but lost the playoff game with the Crimson.
The Ivy League remains the only conference not to have a postseason tournament so the regular season champion goes to the NCAAs.
The Bulldogs (22-6, 13-1 Ivy) jumped out to a 17-3 lead as Columbia missed nine of its first 10 shots. Consecutive 3-pointers by Anthony Dallier capped the opening run 6:38 into the game.
Yale extended the advantage to 27-10 before Lo scored 10 straight points for the Lions, who used a 15-4 burst to close to within six with 4:31 left in the half. But that's as close as they'd get. Mason scored seven straight points during a 10-2 spurt to close the half and give the Bulldogs a 41-27 lead at the break.
Columbia rallied within 49-45 with 9:12 left, but consecutive 3-pointers by Mason and Khaliq Ghani restored the double-digit lead with 7:17 left. Columbia could only get within six the rest of the way.
"I love our team, these guys were once young guys in the locker room," Columbia coach Kyle Smith said. "These four seniors logged a lot of minutes, won more than most and set a number of records. You go back 45-50 years to some of the accomplishments they made. They'll be missed for sure."
