Written By Chip Malafronte at New Haven Register.com
Justin Sears has witnessed other Yale athletic programs enjoy seminal moments since his arrival in New Haven four years ago.
There was a men’s hockey national championship in 2013. The football team stunned Army the following September, its first win over an FBS school in 33 years. Just two weeks ago the squash team won its first national title in 26 years.
“Well, you can’t top a national championship,” Sears said in a crowded locker room after Yale stunned Baylor 79-75 on Thursday afternoon for the first NCAA tournament win in program history. “But it’s up there”
Perhaps the most shocking fact on a day for the ages at Yale wasn’t that the 12th-seeded Bulldogs won the game – played before a pro-Yale crowd of 11,656 that turned the Dunkin’ Donuts Center into a de facto home game.
It’s that a school that’s produced more U.S. presidents (five) than NBA players (three) making its first NCAA appearance since the Kennedy administration that proved they had superior coaching, were more prepared and just plain better than a veteran Power Five giant.
“It’s not who’s the best team four out of seven games like the NBA,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “It’s who’s best for that 40 minutes. Yale was better than us today for 40 minutes and that’s why they won.”
Yale now advances to the second-round for a rematch with Duke on Saturday at 2:40 p.m. Yale lost at Duke 80-61 on Nov. 25.
Drew has done a marvelous job turning Baylor into an annual Big 12 contender. He took over a program hammered by NCAA penalties for multiple violations and coming off an unbelievable scandal in which one player murdered another.
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