The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 129 is Yale basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Yale basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 1
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 2
- Bids: 8
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 12.4
- Bids per season: 0.06
- AP Polls: 4
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 10
- NBA players drafted & played: 4
- Conference Players of the Year: 7
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 18
- Conference tournament titles: 4
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 2
Overall scoop on Yale basketball
Get used to the Ivy League schools, because we’ve got some more coming very soon! Yale is the latest, and if we’re going by the last 20 seasons or so, they’d have the argument of being the best in their conference. Head coach James Jones took over in 1999 and has won 442 games and counting while leading the Bulldogs to eight regular season titles – nearly half of their all-time number. He is a 4x Ivy League Coach of the Year.
Over the last decade and change, Jones took Yale to a new level. The Bulldogs have had a dozen straight winning seasons and made the NCAA Tournament in 2016, 2019, 2022, 2024, and 2025. In 2024, as a 13-seed, they knocked off 4-seed Auburn.
But their win as a 12-seed over Baylor in 2016 might be more famous. Yale hadn’t appeared in March Madness since 1962, and Baylor’s Taurean Prince gave us an all-time classic response on why his Bears got outrebounded by an Ivy League team.
While the current era of Yale basketball has been fun and surely helped in these rankings, the early stages of the program were also outstanding. Yale was named National Champions in 1901 and 1903, which are recognized by the NCAA. In 1896, 1897, 1899, and 1900, they were also named champs, but those years are not recognized as official by the NCAA. Still, in New Haven, CT, they count!
While Yale had lots of All-Americans in that era, they had one player in particular who needs to be mentioned. Tony Lavelli was a Consensus All-American in 1946, 1948, and 1949, helping to lead the program to the NCAA Tournament in ’49. Since there were only eight teams, it counts as an Elite 8!
Unfortunately, the program had some miserable years between the early 60s and 2000s. In fact, from 1964-65 to 2000-01, they only had eight winning seasons. That’s what hurt them in these rankings, because the other eras have been dominant for Connecticut’s team!