Getty Yale forwards Jordan Bruner and Paul Atkinson.
The Stony Brook Seawolves college basketball team will host the Yale Bulldogs at Island FCU Arena in New York for each team’s season opener.
The game (7 p.m. ET start time) will be televised on SNY locally, but anyone in the US can also watch it live online on ESPN+, the digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of most Yale and Ivy League basketball games this season, plus tons of other college basketball and live sports every week, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.
You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch Yale vs Stony Brook live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Yale vs Stony Brook Preview
The Bulldogs went 22-8 in 2018-19, sharing the Ivy League regular season crown with the Harvard Crimson before winning the conference tournament to reach March Madness.
Senior big man Jordan Bruner, who led the team in rebounds and blocks per game last year, is their only returning starter — guards Alex Copeland and Trey Phills and forward Blake Reynolds graduated, and wing Miye Oni, their leader in points and assists per game, got selected by the Utah Jazz in the second round of the NBA draft.
“I feel like people don’t think that we have a lot of depth this year, but if you come to our practices, there’s always competition,” junior forward Paul Atkinson said, according to the Yale Daily News. “Each practice is a grind. Everybody is trying to get minutes settled, and no minutes are determined yet. Everybody’s just trying to fight for playing time, and everyone’s really good on the court.”
He added: “We lost a lot of our leaders from last year, [including] some of our starters, and we only brought in two freshmen. We went from 18 to 15, which doesn’t sound like a huge change, but it just feels a lot different in the locker room. It hasn’t been a problem at all.”
The Seawolves went 24-9 last season, their third year under head coach Jeff Boals. Boals resigned before the team’s last game of the season to accept the head coaching position with the Ohio Bobcats. Stony Brook promoted assistant Geno Ford, former head coach of the Bradley Braves, to take his place on an interim basis, then gave him the full-time job after the season.
Akwasi Yeboah, a guard who last lear led the Seawolves in points and rebounds per game as a junior, transferred to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights in the offseason. This year’s roster has three key newcomers in point guard Makale Foreman, a junior transfer who redshirted last season, and freshmen guards Tavin Pierre Philippe and Tyler Stephenson-Moore.
In 2017-18, Foreman averaged 10.2 points per game and made 2.3 triples per contest at a 38.2% clip for the Chattanooga Mocs.
“He’s an elite shooter, a legitimate deep threat with NBA range, who is also a solid ballhandler and playmaker,” Ford said, according to Newsday. “His ability to score on the perimeter gives us something we did not have last year and he is someone every defense will have to be aware of.”
Pierre Philippe and Stephenson-Moore both hail from nearby Long Island high schools. They were named to the Newsday All-Long Island boys basketball team as seniors in April.
“Defense and spot shooting three-pointers translate instantly and those happen to be things [Stephenson-Moore] is pretty proficient at,” Ford said, per Newsday. “Tavin is a high-level athlete with the skills to play either guard position.”