You can never confuse Yale senior forward Brandon Sherrod as someone who looks at statistics. Even when he’s about to put up a stat no one has ever posted in NCAA Division-1 basketball history.
Sherrod, the senior who’s back on the team after a year away, set the D-1 record for most consecutive field goals made, on the way to scoring a career-high 25 points, as Yale won the battle of Ivy League unbeatens, an 86-72 decision over the Columbia Lions at the Lee Amphitheater in New Haven on Friday.
After the game, Sherrod admitted that he was blissfully unaware that he was about to make history.
“No, I really had no idea,” said Sherrod, who spent all of last year touring the country and the world with Yale’s a cappella group, the Yale Whiffenpoofs. “One of my assistant coaches pulled me aside and told me that I had set that record. So that was pretty cool.”
Sherrod, who came into the game making 25 consecutive shots from the floor and was one shy of the record, made his first five shots to shatter the mark, including a tough layup through a double team that bounced around the rim a couple of times before dropping through the hoop. That elicited a rye smile from Sherrod as he ran down the floor, as Yale took control in the first half after Columbia ran out to a quick 13-7 lead.
Sherrod’s front court mate, 2015 Ivy League Player of the Year Justin Sears, scored 27 points – including 21 in the second half – as the two combined to salt the game away from the paint and from the free throw line: they took 27 of Yale’s 31 free throw attempts in the second half, making 20.
Columbia, who started conference play 4-0 for the first time since 1994, was led by leading scorer Maodo Lo, who scored 21 points and had a career-high seven steals.
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[Cover photo (Brandon Sherrod) courtesy of Christopher Capozziello/The New York Times]
