After last week’s losses to Harvard (13-9, 6-2 Ivy) and Dartmouth (10-11, 4-4), the Bears (7-14, 1-7) entered Friday’s matchup in New Haven looking to snap their losing streak against Yale (18-4, 6-2).
But in the end, the men’s basketball team lost 81-69 to the Bulldogs, who currently hold first place in the Ivy League. After a tightly contested first half, Bruno could not hold the pace as Yale pulled away in the final minutes of the game.
Both teams opened the game with a series of missed opportunities. Eventually, Yale broke the stalemate with three consecutive three-pointers. They cemented their lead with a well-timed lob pass and an easy layup to put the Bulldogs up 11-0 early in the game.
Bruno put its first points on the board when forward Landon Lewis ’26 grabbed his own rebound and knocked down a jumper in traffic. But almost immediately, Yale answered with another three, bringing the score to 14-2 in the Bulldog’s favor.
After a Brown timeout, guard Jeremiah Jenkins ’28 drove into the paint and cycled the ball out to guard Adrian Uchidiuno ’27, who swung it to forward David Rochester ’28 for a three-pointer. On the next possession, Yale converted a dunk — but soon after, forward N’famara Dabo ’27 finished a smooth layup, putting Bruno’s grit on display.
As the half progressed, Brown began to chip away at Yale’s lead with three-pointers from both Uchidiuno and guard Luke Paragon ’27. Down 22-17 with just over eight minutes to play in the half, Jenkins took an inbound pass from Uchidiuno, juked a defender and finished a layup, cutting Yale’s lead to three.
But Yale pulled away moments later, with crisp ball movement that led to a three-pointer. Following two successful Brown free throws, a good dunk by the Bulldogs brought them up 27-21. Uchidiuno countered with an uncontested three of his own, once again trimming the margin to three.
After back-and-forth play, Brown surged late in the half. Guard Malcolm Wrisby-Jefferson ’27 knocked down a wide-open three, and Paragon converted a layup off of a Dabo rebound to tie the game at 29 with just under three minutes remaining in the half.
Yale could only watch as Bruno capitalized on their newfound momentum — the Bears closed the half with a 7-2 run propelled by a pair of Paragon layups and a three by Jenkins.
As the buzzer sounded, Brown headed into the locker room with a 36-31 lead. For a moment, there was hope in the stands that the Bears would turn their season around.
Brown opened the second half with fire under their feet, catching Yale on their heels as they came out of the locker room. A wide-open dunk from Dabo, a powerful finish by Lewis and a clean jumper and two free throws from Wrisby-Jefferson yielded an 8-3 Bruno scoring run.
Wrisby-Jefferson tallied 11 points to Bruno’s score, alongside adding five rebounds and four assists. His impressive performance culminated from “trying to take what the defense was giving (him) while also trying to set (his) teammates to score as well,” Wrisby-Jefferson wrote in an email to The Herald.
“I was able to find a rhythm throughout the game,” he wrote.
But Yale responded to the Bear’s run with back-to-back three-pointers that cut Brown’s lead to four. Hungry to keep the lead, both Lewis and Uchidiuno contributed layups that pushed Brown to an 8-point lead.
Yale continued their string of runs, bringing the game to a tie at 57 over halfway into the second half. Paragon responded with a four-point play — drawing a foul while drilling a three — and Jenkins followed with a three-pointer, bringing Brown up by five.
But the Bear’s hopes of victory were soon destroyed. Over the final eight minutes, the Bulldogs silenced Bruno with a whopping 22-5 scoring run to seal the final score 81-69.
The loss marks Brown’s fifth straight defeat as the team remains in last place in the Ivy standings with a 1-7 conference record.
The Bears will look to snap its skid this weekend with redemption games against Harvard on Friday in Cambridge and Dartmouth the next day in Hanover.
“I feel like we have a great chance of winning this weekend if we play a full 40 minutes of our brand of basketball,” Wrisby-Jefferson wrote.
Harry Guo is a senior staff writer and on the vertical video and design teams. He is from Andover, Massachusetts, and plans on concentrating in Business Economics and International and Public Affairs. In his free time, he enjoys writing poetry and playing poker.
