Tim Tai, personal photographer
BOSTON – After beating Princeton in the Ivy Madness championship on Sunday afternoon, Yale players didn’t have much time to sit down before announcing the NCAA tournament round.
When they left Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion after celebrating on the pitch, cutting the net and waving goodbye to head coach James Jones in the locker room with water shower -Yale has only a few hours before they know their suit and opponent in the first round.
But once CBS host Greg Gumbel started unveiling the interlude at the Selection Sunday show at 6pm, Yale waited and waited. The Bulldogs stayed in Boston to match the reveal of the interlude before returning to New Haven, watching television hanging from the ceiling in a room at Del Frisco’s Steakhouse in Back Bay.
READ MORE: Way to the Great Dance: No. 2 Yale advanced to March Madness after beating number 2. 1 Princeton, 66–64
Players raised their phones ready to catch the moment when Yale would be announced, but instead let out a faint growl in the first 30 minutes as the other teams filled the field. Finally, after announcing 63 of the 68 teams on the field, including eight teams that completed the Top Four earlier this week, Yale saw his name hit the screen.
“It’s just fun to see your name appear on TV,” Jones told The News after the full bracket was announced. “It doesn’t matter who’s on the other team.”
The room exploded with screams and the details were published in: Yale (19–11, 11–3 Ivy), a no. 14 suit, will face the n. 3 Purdue (27-7, 14-6 Big Ten) in the first round on Friday. The Bulldogs and Boilermakers will play at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The winner will proceed to face the winner n. 1. 6 Texas at no. 11 Virginia Tech Sunday on the same site.
Sunday night’s NCAA release added final details: the Yale game will conclude at 2pm Friday on TBS, with Spero Dedes calling play-by-play, Deb Antonelli as color analyst, and AJ Ross working as presenter. television on the sideline.
“We’ve worked as hard all year as they have, and I’m ready,” Yale forward EJ Jarvis ’23 said once CBS completed the full group release, a minute or two after Yale. announced the space. “We are ready. Yale basketball is ready ”.
Purdue finished third in the Big Ten and lost to Iowa in the conference tournament championship on Sunday, entering March Madness via a general offer. (The Ivy League and Big Ten Tournament Championships were two of five games for Sunday’s conference tournament title.) A team ranked AP Top 25 all season, the Boilermakers opened the year at No. 7, developed in n. 1 overall ranking in early December and ranked n. 9 in the latest poll released on Monday 7 March.
Yale and Purdue teamed up in December at Barclays Center, when both teams played in the Basketball Hall of Fame Invitational. Yale faced Iona in the last game in the showcase, while Purdue played overtime against NC State in the afternoon. Yale coaches and players arrived at the Brooklyn arena as the Purdue-NC State match continued and got some action from the stands.
“I’ll take it easy, Purdue believers are very strong, or at least the people next to me,” Jones said.
Jones also met with Purdue head coach Matt Painter via USA Basketball. Painter is the chairman of the US Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee, while Jones coached the American team at the FIBA U19 World Cup in Latvia last summer with Stanford manager Jerod Haase and TCU manager Jamie Dixon. who served as the team’s head coach.
Last summer, Jones coached Purdue standout player, second-year guard Jaden Ivey, in Team USA. Ivey leads the Boilermakers, averaging 17.3 points per game. Appointed to the All-Big Ten First Team last week, he was completed under the basket by center-back 7-foot-4 second-year Zach Edey and senior forward Trevion Williams. Jarvis said he knew Williams was a good passer and that Edey’s boxing was going to be important.
“Young Edey was gigantic, he was huge,” Jones said. “We’re going to need a dump truck to get it off the paint because it’s so big. Very good player. He played for Team Canada when we were in Latvia ”.
Purdue rookie striker Caleb Furst was also included on the U19 roster last summer.
Jones said he probably won’t talk to the Purdue Painter coach before Friday’s game, but they said they’ll have fun before the game. The two talked when both teams played in Brooklyn in December.
“We are ready for anything,” guard Yassine Gharram ’25 said after Sunday’s selection show. “These guys will be patient, that’s all that matters. We will play hard. We will do our best. That’s all. “
Before canceling its 2020-21 season due to COVID-19, Yale is expected to play a regular season game at Purdue in late December 2020. Boilermakers are expected to pay Yale $ 90,000 for the purchase match, according to a request from the public record news filed with Purdue in the summer of 2020.
Yale has been selected for the 56th overall team of the tournament, second a full list of NCAA seeds released Sunday night.
