His career as a standout pitcher is often cited as one of the keys to Scott Burrell’s famous full-court, inbounds pass to Tate George in the 1990 Sweet 16, but don’t discount his days as a football standout at Hamden High, either.

Burrell, after all, had to hit George on an out pattern.

“I had to get Tate on his outside,” Burrell recalled. “I knew what I had to do. We didn’t really work on that play. With one second left, you usually don’t have many plays. I couldn’t let (Clemson’s) Elden Campbell tip the ball, because the game’s over. Tate had Sean Tyson on his back, so I had to throw it to the corner where Tate could catch it.”

The rest, of course, is history: George caught Burrell’s heave, spun around and swished a 15-footer at the buzzer, sending UConn to the East Regional finals and the program on a course of success that hasn’t stopped yet.

Read Chip Malafronte's complete story.

In the spring of 1895, less than four years after Dr. James Naismith invented basketball by nailing peach baskets to the walls of a gymnasium in Springfield, Mass., Yale organized one of the earliest college teams.

Dr. Henry Anderson, a physical education specialist, had trouble finding interested students. He had crudely marked off the dimensions in Yale’s gym, hanging old potato baskets for goals. Since there was no regulation basketball in all New Haven, Anderson used an old football instead.

By the fall, with more players and plenty of practice, Yale was ready for its first season. S.A. Marshall, an 18-year old junior who was 5-foot-9 and 140 pounds, was named team captain.

The game more resembled football. Teams used as many as nine men at a time. A New York Times article profiling the team lauded players who “throw” particularly well.
Center W.E.J. Kirk, a New Canaan native who, at 6-foot and 130 pounds towered over his teammates, was credited for his “way of running on his hands and feet that is a puzzle to the opposing players.”

Read Chip Malafronte's complete story.

Last February, former Harvard standout Jeremy Lin was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, once again bringing Ivy League basketball into the spotlight.

The first man to do so was Yale’s John J. Lee on Jan. 21, 1957.

Labeled by the sports magazine as the “next great Ivy League scholar-athlete,” the 6-foot-3 forward is one of only two Yale players to score 40 or more points in a game. No Bulldog has reached the 40-point plateau since Lee did it against the rival Crimson in 1958.


Read Bill Cloutier's complete story.