August 5, 2009

Arizona State Visits New Haven on Nov. 19

Complete 2009-10 Women's Basketball Schedule

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Twelve home contests, including a Nov. 19 clash with 2009 Regional Finalist Arizona State, highlight the 2009-10 schedule for the Yale women’s basketball team. The Bulldogs will also host Holy Cross, Army, UC Davis and Boston University in addition to seven Ivy League home contests. Big XII teams Kansas State and Colorado, as well as a Thanksgiving tournament at the University of New Mexico underscore the road portion of Yale’s upcoming slate.

The home- and season-opener against Holy Cross on Nov. 13 marks the fourth consecutive season in which the Bulldogs and Crusaders have met. Yale won the most recent meeting in Worcester to kick off the 2008-09 campaign. After hosting Army on Nov. 17, the busy opening week to the season concludes on Nov. 19 as Arizona State visits the John J. Lee Amphitheater. The Sun Devils advanced to the Regional Finals (Elite Eight) of the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

The Bulldogs will then spend Thanksgiving in Albuquerque at the University of New Mexico Tournament. Joining the Bulldogs and the host Lobos are North Carolina A&T and Toledo. The pairings for the November tournament are yet to be announced.

After a road jaunt at Bucknell and home contests against Boston University and UC Davis, Yale closes out 2009 at intra-state rivals Quinnipiac and Sacred Heart. The two Connecticut road contests kick off a seven-game road swing.

While thousands of Americans will begin 2010 in Manhattan, N.Y., the Bulldogs will ring in the New Year in Manhattan, Kansas, as the Wildcats from Kansas State host Yale on Jan. 2. After a Jan. 4 meeting at Colorado, a road contest at the New Jersey Institute of Technology brings the Bulldogs back to the East Coast.

The game at NJIT marks Yale’s final tune-up for the Ivy League slate, which begins at Brown on Jan. 15. A mid-week contest at Bryant closes out the non-conference schedule, and the Bulldogs will then wrap-up the home-and-home series with Brown on Jan. 22, as the Bears travel to the Elm City. A road weekend at Penn and Princeton on Jan. 29 and 30, home contests with Cornell and Columbia on Feb. 5 and 6 and another road swing to Harvard and Dartmouth on Feb. 12 and 13 bring Yale to its longest home stretch of the season: a four game swing featuring a quartet of Ivy League foes. The Bulldogs will host Princeton and Penn on Feb. 19 and 20 before welcoming defending Ivy League Champion Dartmouth to New Haven on Feb. 26 and perennial rival Harvard for Senior Night on Feb. 27. The 2009-10 regular season concludes with a road weekend at Columbia and Cornell on March 5 and 6.

Schedule Notes

• Yale’s non-conference schedule features five repeat opponents from the 2008-09 season: Holy Cross, Army, NJIT, Quinnipiac and Bryant.

• Five teams on the Bulldogs’ slate participated in the 2009 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Dartmouth, Sacred Heart and North Carolina A&T all received automatic bids as conference champions and all lost in the first round to higher-seeded opponents. Kansas State advanced to the second round as a No. 5 seed, and No. 6-seeded Arizona State’s season ended in the Regional Finals (Elite Eight) at the hands of the eventual national champion, Connecticut.

• The Bulldogs’ schedule consists of two teams to which they have never lost (Bryant, NJIT) and three teams that they have never beaten (Arizona State, New Mexico, Kansas State).

• Yale’s Nov. 17 meeting with Army will be the 24th all-time meeting, making the Black Knights the most frequent non-conference opponent for the Bulldogs. Yale has challenged intra-state rival Fairfield on 23 occasions.

• Non-conference games against Toledo, North Carolina A&T, UC Davis and Colorado will all be first-time meetings.

• Including possible opponents, the Bulldogs’ 14 non-conference games could feature as many as 10 different conferences (Big XII, Big West, Colonial, Great West, Mid-American, Mid-Eastern Athletic, Mountain West, Northeast, Pac-10, Patriot) as well a Division I independent (Bryant).

• Opposing head coaches Kathy Fedorjaka (Bucknell) and Tricia Fabbri (Quinnipiac) both played for Yale Associate Head Coach Dianne Nolan at Fairfield University.

report filed by Drew M. Kingsley, Yale Sports Publicity