Head coach James Jones of the Yale Bulldogs looks on during a college basketball game against the Columbia Lions at the Payne Whitney Gymnasium in the John J. Lee Amphitheater on January 19, 2026 in New Haven, Connecticut. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
Mitchell Layton/Getty Images
NEW HAVEN — The Yale men’s basketball team lost four of its five starters from last season, three to the transfer portal and one to graduation, and yet the Bulldogs expect to win another Ivy League championship this season and make their sixth appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
“We have won a championship each of the last seven years, either the regular season or our conference tournament,” coach James Jones said. “No one wants to be part of the team that doesn’t win that next championship for our program. They are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure they get it done again.”
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Yale won the Ivy League regular season championship each of the last two seasons, shared it with Princeton in 2023 and won it three seasons in a row from 2019-21. The Bulldogs won the Ivy League Tournament in 2019, 2022, 2024 and 2025.
“You have to believe that you are better than everybody to be better than everyone,” Jones said. “You can’t be hoping. You have to believe it, and then you have to go out and prove it.
“I think that comes down to the culture and the guys in the program. The older players believe it, because they have experienced success, and they teach the younger guys, ‘This is what Yale basketball is.’”
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Yale basketball is James Jones. He is the longest tenured coach in the Ivy League, entering his 28th year as the head coach. His career record of 442-326 makes him second in all-time wins among Ivy League men’s basketball coaches, behind only Princeton’s Pete Carril (514-261).
At age 62, he plans to coach long enough to get the 73 wins to break that record.
Overall, Jones has eight Ivy League regular season titles and four tournament titles, and he is the four-time coach of the year in the league.
If the Bulldogs — who open the regular season Nov. 2 vs. Howard — are going to win another league championship this season, Jones will need to maximize a roster with lone returning starter Trevor Mullin, who averaged 11.5 points per game and led the team in threes (60).
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Last year’s season’s top reserve, West Hartford’s Riley Fox, will also be heavily counted on as he averaged 10 points per game and was tied for second with 45 threes long with Jordan Braithwaite, another key player.
West Hartford’s Riley Fox is expected to be one of the core players for the Yale basketball team during the 2026-27 season. The 6-foot-6 junior forward averaged 10 points per game for the Bulldogs last season en route to the Ivy League regular season championship.
Yale Athletics
“Our backcourt is really solid with Riley Fox and Jordan Brathwaite and Trevor Mullin, because those guys are very talented and the most experienced on our team,” Jones said. “They have done a really good job in practice of leading us. We have to develop the kids, especially in the post, but we have a lot of options there.
“I have two sophomores who are probably going to start at the four (Daniel Ogunyemi) and the five (Jack Sullivan). They should be coming off the bench for the two guys that we lost to Baylor and Providence. So, we will be younger than we normally are.”
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The Bulldogs lost a lot of talent from last year’s team. Casey Simmons graduated and is playing professionally in Spain.
Leading scorer and rebounder Nick Townsend (16.3 ppg, 7.4 rpg) went undrafted but played for the 76ers in the NBA Summer League before deciding to petition the NCAA for a fifth year of eligibility. Since the Ivy League does not allow players to play more than four years, he transferred to Stanford.
“I also had one grad (6-foot-10 Samson Aletan) transfer to Providence,” Jones said. “My guy averaged seven points and five rebounds per game, and he is making $1.7 million at Providence.
“Then I had another player (6-6 forward Isaac Celiscar) who would have been our best player returning as our starting 3-4, and he is at Baylor, and he is going to make $4 million over two years. Then if he gets a fifth year now, he will probably get $3 million for that year and make $7 million in total.”
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Jones said the fifth-year rule is going to significantly hurt the Ivy League teams, because they won’t have any fifth-year players and everyone else will.
Yale men’s basketball coach James Jones.
Yale Athletics
“We used to be the program that had older players,” he said, “and now we are going to have younger players.”
Revenue sharing or NIL money for players also hurts the Ivy League, because they don’t offer any, and players are going elsewhere seeking it.
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“It is just a different world we are in, but there still is a segment of our population that is always going to gravitate to who we are and what we do,” Jones said. “We have to make sure we run in those lanes as best we can.
“It used to be there were probably eight kids per year that would come into the Ivy League that could impact winning. Now there are probably four. So, I need to get all four of those students if we are going to be able to play at the same level that we have played in the past.”
Despite losing crucial players, Yale did retain nine players from last year’s 24-7 team. Although the team is young with only two seniors and three juniors, Jones believes the program’s culture and confidence will allow them to keep winning.
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“One of the things that happens for us – and I think UConn can attest to this and how it helps them – is that a lot of teams don’t think they can beat us. They lose before the game starts, because they don’t think they can win. That is helpful to us, especially because our guys believe they can win.”