Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 74-70 loss to Harvard

The dagger is officially in Penn’s season after the Quakers took a difficult-to-swallow road defeat at Harvard, 74-70.

Penn (10-16, 2-9 Ivy) completed a comeback from 17 points down in the second half after Clark Slajchert drained an open three from the right wing off an offensive rebound to tie the game at 62 with 5:45 to play.

But the Quakers were ultimately undone by a terrible break on a 50/50 ball when it mattered most.

With Penn down two points and the clock ticking below 3:45 to play, junior Nick Spinoso poked the ball free from Harvard’s Louis Lesmond in the post. Freshman Sam Brown dove but couldn’t come up with the loose ball. Instead, Harvard’s Malik Mack was able to recover it and swing the ball to Lesmond for an open corner three out of the scramble. Lesmond drained the shot to put the Crimson (14-10, 5-6) up two possessions.

Truth be told, Penn’s season effectively ended well before Saturday. That’s what happens when you lose eight games in a row during a 14-game conference season.

All that’s left to play for now is pride and future development. There’s plenty to rue about Saturday, starting with how …

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LISTEN: Princeton men’s basketball handles Harvard, 66-53

Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 66-53 win for Princeton (20-3, 8-2 Ivy) at Harvard (13-10, 4-6) Friday night that allowed the Tigers to keep a game behind Cornell in the Ivy League standings:

Columbia women’s basketball pulls away to win at Harvard, 71-63

Columbia women’s basketball, which clinched a slot in the Ivy League Tournament earlier in the weekend, used an 11-0 run late in the fourth quarter to pull away from Harvard in a 71-63 win in a nationally televised game at a sold-out Lavietes Pavilion Sunday afternoon.

The Lions (18-5, 9-1 Ivy) swept the season series from the Crimson and remain in sole possession of second place, one game behind No. 25 Princeton with four games left in the regular season. Despite the defeat, Harvard (14-9, 7-3) maintains its hold on third place, two games over Brown, but its chances at the No. 1 seed are quickly slipping away.

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Cornell men’s basketball sweeps weekend over Harvard and Dartmouth, looks toward Yale rematch

After its first Ivy League loss to Yale last weekend, Cornell men’s basketball wasn’t fazed.

Chip on their shoulders and all, the Big Red returned home and came up with a sweep of Harvard and Dartmouth for the second time in three weeks.

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Harvard men’s basketball escapes Columbia, 80-75, to sweep season series

Following a Friday night loss to Cornell, the dreaded bus trip from Ithaca to Morningside Heights and a nine-point deficit midway through the second half of Saturday night’s contest, Harvard men’s basketball stormed back to defeat Columbia by five, 80-75, and left Levien Gymnasium tied with the Lions in league play.

Both teams are in fourth place in the Ivy League, but the Crimson (13-9, 4-5 Ivy) swept the season series and presently hold the fourth seed for the Ivy League Tournament with only five games to go.

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Cornell men’s basketball pulls away from Harvard in the second half to remain unbeaten in Ivy League play

After hard-fought wins for both teams on Friday night, Cornell men’s basketball looked to use its depth, while Harvard hoped its physical defense would be the difference in the second night of the opening weekend of back-to-back contests.

While the two teams slugged it out in the first half, the Big Red’s relentless roster wore down the Crimson over the final 20 minutes and came away with an 89-76 win in front of an Alumni Night crowd that featured NCAA president and Ivy Basketball Legend Charlie Baker.

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Columbia/Harvard Friday night matchups: Crimson men and Lions women prevail

On the first night of the Ivy League’s opening back-to-back weekend, the Columbia women hosted Harvard, while the Crimson men welcomed the Lions.

When the dust cleared on Friday evening, both home teams held serve in competitive contests.

With the wins, the Lions women (14-5, 5-1 Ivy) claimed sole possession of second place and the Crimson men (11-7. 2-3) sat in a fourth-place tie with Brown.

The Harvard (11-8, 4-2) women dropped to a third-place tie with Brown, while the Lions (10-8, 1-4) men fell into a sixth-place tie with Dartmouth and Penn.

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Yale men’s basketball tops Harvard, 78-65

Remember those Yale trips to hostile environments at Gonzaga and then-No. 2 Kansas in November and December?

Well, they certainly prepared the Bulldogs for a sold-out and raucous crowd at Lavietes Pavilion Saturday as they prevailed against Harvard, 78-65, for their sixth consecutive win and fifth straight over the Crimson.

Yale (13-6, 4-0 Ivy) got the win despite its highest scorer, sophomore frontcourt stalwart Danny Wolf (14.6) being held to a season low and second-leading scorer (13.5) junior guard Bez Mbeng managing only two points.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 70-61 loss to Harvard

PHILADELPHIA — Penn picked a bad day to come out flat.

The Quakers dug themselves a 21-point deficit in the first half against Harvard thanks to stretches of stagnant offense and white-hot shooting from the Crimson. It proved to be too much to overcome in a 70-61 loss, despite a valiant comeback effort in the second half.

The loss isn’t fatal to Penn’s Ivy Madness hopes, but it ratchets up the pressure on the Quakers ahead of upcoming road games against Columbia and Brown. They’ll need to win one — if not both — of those games to feel good about their chances of reaching New York City.

There aren’t too many happy Quakeaways from Saturday. Penn (9-9, 1-2 Ivy) no-showed for 20 minutes against Harvard (10-6, 1-2) in front of a relatively full Palestra — including a packed student section. It wasn’t the type of product that will encourage those students to be repeat customers.

The Red and Blue have lots of questions to wrestle with ahead of next Saturday’s trip to Levien Gymnasium, starting with …

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Harmoni Turner, Katie Krupa lead Harvard women’s basketball past Penn

Katie Krupa (Harvard Athletics)
Harmoni Turner and Katie Krupa delivered career scoring highs Saturday to carry Harvard women’s basketball to a homecourt 69-56 win over Penn.
Turner, the junior guard, is often the engine behind the Harvard offense, averaging just under 20 points a game and four assists. Against Penn, she knocked down 31 points on 12-for-22 shooting to match her career best — plus 10 rebounds and a half-dozen assists. For Krupa, a sophomore forward, it was a breakout performance: 25 points on 8-for-12 shooting, including 3-for-7 on threes.

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