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Purdue vs Yale prediction, NCAA Tournament First Round game preview, how to watch, lines, and why each team might – or might not – win on Friday
Purdue vs Yale: NCAA Tournament First Round prediction and college basketball game preview.
Date: Friday, March 18
Game Time: 2:00 pm
Venue: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, WI
How To Watch: TBS
Records: Purdue (3 seed, 27-7)
Yale (14 seed, 19-11)
Region: East
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Princeton vs Yale prediction, college basketball game preview, how to watch, lines, and why each team might – or might not – win on Sunday in the Ivy League Championship.
Princeton vs Yale prediction, college basketball game preview, how to watch: Sunday, March 13
Date: Sunday, March 13
Game Time: 12:00 ET
Venue: Lavietes Pavilion, Cambridge, MA
How To Watch: ESPN2 & ESPN+
Record: Princeton (23-5), Yale (18-11)
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The ACC gave out some hardware to the Irish.
With Notre Dame all but certain to be an NCAA Tournament team, it was a given that the ACC would reward some of its players. Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Three Irish players have been named to a variety of all-conference teams.
Blake Wesley, the freshman phenom from South Bend who is projected to be a first-round NBA draft selection this year, has been named to the All-ACC Second Team and the conference’s All-Rookie Team. The Irish’s last all-rookie selection was Jerian Grant on the Big East team for the 2011-12 season. Wesley definitely earned both honors after leading the team in scoring (14.8 points a game).
Senior Dane Goodwin is on the All-ACC Third Team after averaging 14.0 points a game and putting up a shooting slash line of .498/.448/.855. Only Wesley had a higher scoring average for the Irish.
Paul Atkinson Jr., the graduate transfer from Yale and former Ivy League Player of the Year, is an honorable mention on the All-ACC Team. He rounded out the Irish players with double-digit scoring averages at 12.6.
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The Irish don’t lead every head-to-head matchup.
As winning a tradition that Notre Dame has, that tradition hasn’t always shined through. In fact, there are some schools that the Irish have lost to more times than they’ve beaten. A few other teams have beaten the Irish the only time they’ve faced them, and still others have more than one victory without having lost at all. Given how big the Irish are in more ways than one, that’s a sense of pride for anyone.
Who are the lucky few that can say with certitude that they have the upper hand on Notre Dame? For our purposes, we’ll narrow it down to the programs currently competing at the Football Bowl Subdivision level. Quick shoutout to the teams that never will have to worry about losing this distinction because they either don’t play in the Irish’s division anymore or they no longer exist. Those programs are Yale, Knox, Chicago and Great Lakes Navy.
Now, here are the FBS programs that have true bragging rights over the Irish:
A look at the life of Knoxville’s Lee McClung, college football’s early stars.
Harvard and Yale will play each other in football for the 137th time Saturday.
The rivalry will be played for the first time since Nov. 23, 2019. The 2020 contest was not played due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With the Harvard-Yale rivalry returning Saturday, Vols Wire highlights one of the most decorated players in the series.
Knoxville’s Lee McClung was part of Yale’s early football success. McClung played halfback at Yale from 1888-91 and was viewed as an early star in college football and a creator of cut-back runs.
His father, Frank McClung, is the honoree of the University of Tennessee’s McClung Museum and his great-grandfather, Charles McClung, was a surveyor who laid out the city of Knoxville.
McClung scored 494 points while at Yale. His career began before the University of Tennessee first fielded a football team in 1891.
During his career at Yale, the Knoxvillian played against Harvard three times. In the rivalry known as “The Game,” McClung and Yale were 2-1 in contests against the Crimson.
After McClung’s collegiate career with the Bulldogs, he served as head coach for the University of California’s football team in 1892, guiding the Golden Bears to a 2-1-1 record, and then worked in the railroad, insurance and banking professions.
He would then become appointed by President William Howard Taft as Treasurer of the United States on Sept. 23, 1909. His name appeared on currency printed from 1909-12.
A world traveler, McClung would die at age 44 of typhoid on Dec. 19, 1914 in London, England. The Knoxvillian was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1963. He was a consensus All-American during the 1890 and 1891 seasons and won the national championship in 1888 and 1891 under head coach Walter Camp.
Below are clippings of McClung’s time at Yale playing against Harvard in “The Game.”
Take a music break compliments of Notre Dame’s next opponent.
Some of you probably are reading this asking why a Notre Dame site is giving praise to North Carolina. You might be think we should be doing anything but. While you might be right, there will be plenty of time for that between now and Saturday. I want to bring attention to a cool tradition they have at Chapel Hill that’s not related to football.
“Carolina in My Mind” by James Taylor has become an unofficial state song of North Carolina. The university at Chapel Hill has fully embraced it to the point that the UNC Clef Hangers, the campus’ oldest a cappella group, sings it at commencement every year. Though usually performed live, COVID-19 forced the 2020 performance to be done virtually. This past year allowed for a normal commencement, and while the performance again was prerecorded, the group was together in person this time:
If you haven’t gotten to college yet, find one that has a musical tradition as awesome as this. The Yale Whiffenpoofs singing their trademark song at the end of every concert is cool, too, though that might be too tough of a school to get into. Regardless, it’s a nice perk to have as you go through your college experience. You will not be sorry.
Who will be hooping it up for the Irish this season?
It feels like college basketball remains far away, but Midnight Madness just happened, so it’s closer than you think. To that end, we should look at who makes up Notre Dame’s roster for the upcoming season. Many believe this is the team that can get the program out of the doldrums and back on track towards respectability. A major step in getting people to believe that would be the Irish’s first NCAA Tournament selection since 2017, which also was the last year they finished above .500 against ACC opponents.
This will be the 22nd iteration of the Irish with Mike Brey as coach. Despite having more wins than anyone in program history, he has two losing seasons in the past three and three losing conference records over the past four years. If he isn’t able to get this group to reach its full potential, questions about his future in South Bend certainly will arise. Here are the players who could determine where both Brey and the program headed going forward:
Not a bad landing spot for the former Fighting Irish wide receiver.
Former Notre Dame wide receiver Jay Brunelle spent less than a month in the transfer portal before finding his new home in the Ivy League.
The 6-foot-1, 200-pound Brunelle is headed back near his home of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. He has decided to transfer to Yale, announcing the decision on Twitter this Tuesday.
Brunelle was set to enter his sophomore season at Notre Dame after not getting on the field at all in 2020. His career with the Fighting Irish got off to an unfortunate start when he had surgery on his shoulder shortly after enrolling.
Related: Notre Dame football 2021 transfer portal tracker
Brunelle was graded a three-star recruit by both 247Sports and Rivals when he came out of St. John’s in Massachusetts.
I’m honored to be continuing my academic and athletic career at Yale University. While I look ahead with great excitement, I’m also blessed to bring with me a piece of the ☘️ in my heart.#ELITE 🐶 pic.twitter.com/t7z2FylJxB
— Jay Brunelle (@jabrunie) July 6, 2021
Brunelle is the latest of a slew of Notre Dame players over the past year to use the transfer portal to continue their careers elsewhere.
A prominent college basketball expert is thinking highly of Notre Dame for next season.
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Ever since college basketball experts began make their early predictions for the 2021-22 season, Notre Dame often has been included. Joe Lunardi of ESPN still has the Irish in his Bracketology. Now, Jon Rothstein of College Hoops Today is ranking the Irish 44th in the upcoming season’s first edition of the Rothstein 45.
Notre Dame is the ACC team ranked lowest in this installment. Florida State and Duke have the conference’s best rankings at 13th and 14th, respectively. Virginia Tech and North Carolina are next to each other with respective rankings of 20th and 21st. They’re followed by Virginia (24th), Syracuse (26th), Georgia Tech (28th) and Louisville (43rd).
Yale transfer Paul Atkinson is expected to crack the Irish’s starting lineup, and the only losses are Juwan Durham and Nikola Djogo, the latter of whom transferred to Northeastern for his final year of eligibility. With the Irish’s core remaining almost intact, it’s hard to imagine another season together won’t work wonders.
Think the Irish can make the next NCAA Tournament?
Yes, it’s way too early to be thinking about the 2022 NCAA Tournament, but that hasn’t stopped college basketball fans from doing so. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi is one of them, and he’s released his latest Bracketology. Notre Dame fans undoubtedly want to forget about the 11-15 season they just experienced, but they’ll be pleased to know that Lunardi has the next iteration of the Irish as one of the last teams to make the tournament without having to play in the First Four. Specifically, he lists the Irish as a No. 10 seed against Indiana, so maybe the Crossroads Classic will serve as a preview for March?
Lunardi has good reason to be bullish about Notre Dame, which will receive a boost from Yale transfer Paul Atkinson and South Bend natives J.R. Konieczny and Blake Wesley. The Irish also will return their top three scorers from the past season as seniors: Prentiss Hubb, Nate Laszewski and Dane Goodwin. This is a program desperate for good things as it hasn’t made the Big Dance since 2017. Fortunately, there’s reason to think that those good things are close ahead.
