Sydnei Caldwell

Penn women fall to Richmond in WNIT

by
The Richmond women started hot and never cooled off much at home, ending Penn’s season Thursday in a first-round WNIT game, 75-52.
There was no fairy-tale ending for Penn. Kayla Padilla notched 21 points on 7-for-18 shooting, eight rebounds and five assists — leading the team in all three categories — in her final game for the Red and Blue. She played all but the final seconds and got hugs from her coaches as time expired. But Richmond (21-10) played an impeccable game at Robins Court — jumping to an 11-0 lead and hitting five three-pointers in the first quarter. The Spiders’ lead built to as much as 29, and they outscored their opponents in each quarter.

Read more

Ivy League Tournament women’s semifinal preview: No. 4 Penn vs. No. 1 Princeton

by

No. 1 Princeton (21-5, 12-2 Ivy) vs No. 4 Penn (17-10, 9-5 Ivy), Jadwin Gym, 4:30 p.m. (available on ESPN+)

Game #1, 1/16/23: Princeton (home) over Penn, 55-40
Game #2, 3/3/23: Princeton over Penn (home), 71-52

Read more

Penn women get through warmup at Dartmouth, 54-37  

by
It was a game of limited importance. The Penn women, in third place and assured of a spot in the Ivy tournament, made the long road trip to Hanover, N.H., for what was supposed to be a tune-up at Dartmouth, which had yet to win an Ivy game.
But Penn wasn’t playing like a team contending for a title Saturday — shooting poorly and turning the ball over repeatedly coming off a disappointing loss at upstart Brown a week earlier.
Penn held just a one-point lead when Dartmouth junior guard Mia Curtis grabbed the rebound after a Penn miss with three seconds on the clock and hustled the ball downcourt to senior forward Emma Koch for the layup at the buzzer — putting the Big Green ahead, 12-11, after one quarter.

Read more

Penn women trounce Brown in Ivy opener

by
The question still unanswered at the start of Monday afternoon: whether Brown or Penn belonged in the top tier of Ivy women’s basketball.
Penn provided an emphatic answer quickly, leading from start to finish and scoring 19 straight points in the 25-4 first quarter of a 74-53 home victory, its seventh win in a row.
It’s not just that the Quakers were better than the Brown Bears for the 21st straight time. It’s that they played a commanding game, inside and out, that will challenge anyone else in the Ivies.

Read more

Penn women romp over Gwynedd Mercy in pre-Ivy warmup

by
Coaches have plenty of good reasons for scheduling events like the Penn women’s Friday afternoon game — let’s not call it a contest — against Gwynedd Mercy at the Palestra. Drama just isn’t one of them.
Let’s get the basics out of the way: Penn 95, G. Mercy 38. The Quakers put 17 players on the court (no, not all at once), and 16 of them scored. The Penn reserves outscored the Penn starters, who in turn outscored Gwynedd Mercy, which to be fair played well for a Division III team facing a bigger, faster, more talented Division I team.

Read more

Penn women rout St. Francis Brooklyn for fourth straight win

by
There being no mercy rule in basketball, coaches on the comfortable end of a lead will pull their starters and give untried freshmen real-life college playing time.
When Penn’s Mike McLaughlin did that Thursday night against St. Francis Brooklyn, the game was only three-quarters over — and the Penn reserves made the lead even bigger, closing out a 78-44 romp.
It wasn’t just that St. Francis (1-9) was victim material, though it’s a young team. The Quakers played well enough to beat any team on their schedule, ending the drama early with a 33-point first quarter, knocking down three after three. Penn sank 12 of its 17 first-quarter shots, a stunning 70.6%. The pace of long balls eased up after that, but Penn’s threes — 15 on 37 attempts for the night, or 40.5% — were enough by themselves to outscore everything St. Francis put into the basket.

Read more

Penn women need overtime to beat Bucknell

by
For the third game in a row, the Penn women were facing a team that beat them last season. And for the third game in a row, they came away with the win.
This time, though, it wasn’t easy. And it required good play up and down the lineup: Four Penn starters scored in double figures, and forward Floor Toonders posted her second double-double in a row.

Read more

Ivy hoops roundup – A new Floor, opened coaching doors and promotions galore

by

Before commencing with the rest of the Ivy hoops roundup, a note of sorrow about the passing of James “Booney” Salters, the 1980 Penn grad whose dynamic scoring and passing made him one of the best guards in men’s program history.

Salters died July 7. He was 64.

Penn made the NCAA Tournament in all three of Salters’ three seasons with the Red & Blue. The Penn Athletics and Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Famer captained the often overlooked 1979-80 Penn team that advanced to the second round of the Big Dance, leading the squad in scoring and sinking the game-winning shot to triumph over Princeton, 50-49, in an Ivy League playoff matchup.

Read more