No. 13-seed Yale avoids late disaster, stuns Auburn in March Madness upset
The Ivy Leagu♏e caused some March Madne🔯ss chaos again.
One year after Princeton’s run to the Sweet Sixteen, No. 13-seed Yale stunned No. 4-seed Auburn, 78-76, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Frid𝓀ay for just the second March Madness win in program history — and its first since upsetting No. 5-seed Baylor in 201♚2.
“I don’t know if that’s the best win in Yale basketball history,” head coach James Jones told reporters postgame, “but I will tell you, that’s the best basketball team that we’ve beaten in Yale basketball history as far as I’m concerned.”
John Poulakidas scored 28 points for the Bulldogs, and they survived a late disas✃ter — with a late foul giving the Tigers a chance to tie in the final seconds — and secured the win when a final Auburn 3-pointer bounced off.
Last year,ꦦ🦩 Yale was the group that Princeton defeated before making its run — and upsetting Arizona and Missouri — to the Sweet 16.
The Ivy League championship🍃 loss left the Bulldogs “itching” to figure out a way to experience that opportunity, ꦡtoo, guard August Mahoney said.
They finally did, but it took a Matt Knowling jumper as the final horn sounded to topple Brown and earn the chance to face Auburn, the SEC champion, in the first place.
Yale trailed Aubur💧n by seven points at halftime, tied the game in the early minutes of the season half but, again, fell behind — this time by 10 with 7:35 left.
But that’s when the Bulldogs star⛄ted chipping away, 🍌one 3-pointer, one free throw and one jumper at a time, until they took the lead on Poulakidas’ 3-ball with 2:11 remaining.
“After I hit my first couple of shots, obviously the floodgates opened♑,” Poulakidas told reporters.
Yale had appeared to clinch its win when 🅰Yassine Gharram was fouled with the Bulldogs up by three and 13 seconds left, but he converted oཧn just one of the shots.
Auburn’s K.D. Johnson was fouꦦled while making a basket but missed the free throw, and a jump𒁏 ball gave possession back to the Tigers.
Another Yale foul, this time on the ensuing out-of-bounds play, gave Auburn two addi🏅ꩵtional foul shots and a chance to tie the game.
Tre Donaldson, who was wide open on the sequence to earn the free throwsဣ, missed both.
Then, the 🔥Tigers managed to grab the offensive rebound.
But Johnson’s 3-pointer clanked off — as did a pair of other attempts around the basket that would’ve t🐬ied the game — on Auburn’s desperation heave, and that,꧟ for Friday, was enough for the Bulldogs.
“Every basketball player grows up watching March Madness the day they’re old enough to know what it is, and you see Cinderella stories all throughout every year — and you see, like, the underdog win some big games,” Mahoney told reporters.
“It’s a dream come true when you come to a school like Yale to not only make it but to win that game.”
