Fifteen Things You Might Not Have Known About Yale Basketball

Yale defeated Baylor and will face Duke on Saturday in one of the preppiest matchups in NCAA Tournament history. Much of the coverage of the team has centered around harrowing allegations against its expelled former captain Jack Montague, who has since announced intention to file a lawsuit against the school in an attempt to clear his name. Our site has published several articles about that story in the past few weeks. This list centers around the current Yale basketball team, and also some interesting historical facts.

1) Sophomore forward Eric Anderson interned at Stevens Capitol Management in Philadelphia last summer; his father Gary was an assistant football coach at Duke.

2) 2011 alumnus Porter Braswell left Goldman Sachs in 2015 to co-found Jopwell, a “a platform that helps companies connect and communicate with minority candidates for internships, entry-level, and experienced hiring opportunities.”

3) Damn:

4) Senior forward Brandon Sherrod took last season away off from basketball to sing in Whiffenpoofs, Yale’s a cappella group.

5) The Bulldogs play in one of the smallest gyms in Division I, the John J. Lee Amphitheater in Payne Whitney Gymnasium has a capacity of just 2,532. But hey, that’s still more than Harvard’s Lavietes Pavilion (2,195) and that’s all that matters.

6) The Payne Whitney Gymnasium that houses the team’s home court and facilities was donated by Yale alum John Hay (Jock) Whitney in honor of his father. Jock Whitney was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune and president of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

The Whitney family is one of the most prominent in American history.

7) Trey Phills is the son of late former Hornets star Bobby Phills.

Bobby Phills’ legacy was chronicled in a 2015 Grantland story by Jonathan Abrams.

8) 2015 alum Matt Townsend majored in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and is a Rhodes Scholar.

9) James Jones is in his 17th year as the head coach at Yale, his brother Joe Jones is the current head coach at Boston University and was previously Columbia’s head coach.

10) Yale product Tony Lavelli was selected with the fourth pick of the 1949 NBA Draft by the Boston Celtics, but initially turned down a basketball career so he could enroll at Juilliard. Lavelli eventually decided to play on the condition the Celtics paid him an extra $125 per game and let him play his accordion during half-time breaks. No, this is not a joke.

Lavelli played for the Celtics and Knicks during his two-year career, but his first love was always music. He became a songwriter and nightclub performer after his time on the hardwood was over.

11) Yale has produced two other NBA players: Butch Graves, who played four games for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 1984-85 season, and Chris Dudley, who played 886 games during a 16-year NBA career from 1987-2003.

Dudley was a tough, journeyman post player who also happened to be one of the worst free throw shooters in basketball history.

12) The aforementioned Brandon Sherrod set an NCAA record by hitting 30 consecutive field goals earlier this season.

13) Yale has won six Ivy League championships (1957, 1962, 1963, 2002, 2015 and 2016). But the Bulldogs can also claim eight Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League titles (1902, 1903, 1907, 1915, 1917, 1923, 1933 and 1949).

14) Yale has been named men’s basketball national champion six times. Unfortunately none of those titles have come after 1903, which was just 12 years after the sport was invented. But hey, they still count!

15) Yale’s hero of the game against Baylor was sophomore guard Makai Mason who poured in 31 points. Makai in Hawaiian means “Heading toward the ocean.” Mason has three brothers: Sandino, Yukio and Akira.

Mason’s parents Dan and Jodi clearly went deep into their baby names book.