The Palestra

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 76-72 upset of No. 21 Villanova

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With a little ball-fake and a half jab step, Tyler Perkins generated just enough space to rise up over Villanova’s Brendan Hausen and create a memory Penn fans will remember forever.

The freshman sensation used those moves to bury a corner three in front of the Penn bench that pushed the Quakers’ lead over the Associated Press No. 21 Wildcats to 11 points with four minutes to play and sent the Palestra into a frenzy. After weathering one last barrage of Villanova three-pointers, Penn sealed a stunning 76-72 upset over the Wildcats.

For the Quakers (3-1, 1-1 Big 5), the win was their first triumph over a ranked team since a nearly identical upset over Villanova at the Palestra in December 2018; that edition of the Wildcats was defending an NCAA title and entered ranked 17th in the AP poll.

The images the upset generated — Perkins throwing the ball into the air in joy as time expired, fans storming the court — are the ones that, in a perfect world, would create a whole new generation of dedicated Quakers fans.

What else can Penn fans hold onto from a magical Monday night?

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men besting Bucknell, 80-61

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Penn is off to its first 2-0 start since the 2018-19 season after a wire-to-wire win over Bucknell at the Palestra by a score of 80-61.

The Quakers had a few nervous moments in the second half after a stagnant stretch on offense allowed the Bison (0-2) to cut what had been a 20-point halftime lead to just nine as the clock neared the under-eight media timeout.

Instead of relying on one player to stop Bucknell’s run, Penn persevered by committee. Junior guard George Smith restored Penn’s double-digit lead by making a nice interior find to sophomore forward Johnnie Walter (more on him later) for an easy layup late in the shot clock.

Sophomore guard Cam Thrower added seven critical points down the stretch as well, including a difficult stepback two-point jumper and a deep three-pointer with 4:45 that pushed Penn’s lead to 21 and effectively iced the game.

Bucknell may not have been the most difficult opponent — the Bison entered Wednesday ranked 349th in KenPom — but the win left Penn fans with plenty of happy Quakeaways:

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Three Quakeaways from the Penn men’s 102-57 rout of John Jay

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Tyler Perkins delivered a strong 15-point performance in his collegiate debut. (Penn Athletics)

Chalk up Penn’s first game in the post-Jordan Dingle era as a success.

The Quakers raced out to a 30-9 lead in the first six-plus minutes against Division III John Jay on Monday at the Palestra and didn’t look back en route to a 102-57 win.

With the second-leading scorer in Division I gone to St. John’s, Penn (1-0) relied on offensive production by committee; five players scored in double figures.

Monday’s contest was, in all practicality, a preseason game. But the Quakers put enough on tape to have some meaningful Quakeaways ahead of Wednesday’s home game against Bucknell.

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Inside Ivy Hoops 4-11-23

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Ivy Hoops Online editor Mike Tony and IHO writer Rob Browne discuss memorable postseason runs for Princeton men’s and women’s basketball and Columbia and Harvard in the WNIT, the new “Big 5” (really City 6) Classic, the prospect and potential impact of athletic scholarships for Ivy hoopsters and much more:

Princeton women push back to power past Penn, 71-52

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Kaitlyn Chen put on a memorable performance in Princeton’s victory over archrival Penn Friday, notching 27 points, five assists and four rebounds in 37 minutes. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Editor’s note: Princeton-Penn is always a big deal, and our Toothless Tiger and Palestra Pete combine to recap Saturday night’s P vs. P action in audio and written form below: 

It was The Kaitlyn Chen Show, but more than that, it was The Princeton Defense Show at Penn on Friday night, and the Tigers roared back (sorry) from a first-half deficit to beat the Quakers handily, 71-52.

In some respects, the game was meaningless: For weeks we’ve known that the top two women’s teams going into the Ivy League Tournament would be Princeton and Columbia, and that they would face Penn and Harvard in the first-round games. But pride counts, too, and Princeton knew it needed this win to get a share of its fifth straight regular-season title.

On the Penn side, too, the stakes were emotional: This was Senior Night, and Princeton was the only Ivy the graduating Penn players had never beaten. Truth is, they’d never come very close: The 15-point loss in January at Princeton was their closest score. Their best chance probably would have come in the COVID-canceled Ivy tournament of 2020, or more likely the canceled season that followed, when the career of Penn’s last dominant center, Eleah Parker, would have overlapped with that of forward Jordan Obi.

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men taking care of business in win over Dartmouth

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Senior Lucas Monroe turned in a 13-point, 10-rebound performance to lift Penn past Dartmouth at the Palestra Saturday (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

PHILADELPHIA — Penn is one win away from at least a share of the Ivy League regular season championship after a businesslike 89-79 win over Dartmouth at the Palestra on Senior Day.

The Quakers never trailed after the 16-minute mark of the first half, but there were some dicey moments along the way. At one point, a 9-0 Big Green run midway through the second half cut the visiting team’s deficit to 64-61 and forced Penn coach Steve Donahue into a timeout with 9:19 to play.

Coming out of the break, junior forward Max Martz proved to be Penn’s stopper.

Martz got a mismatch in the post against Dartmouth’s Ryan Cornish, backed down the guard and drained a righty hook to extend the Red and Blue’s lead back to five. He then went on to add two three-pointers from the corner and a second jumper over the next four-plus minutes to hold Dartmouth at bay. Martz finished the afternoon with 18 points and a team-high KenPom offensive rating of 163 points per 100 possessions.

Penn will need a performance like that from Martz next Saturday at Princeton in arguably the team’s biggest regular-season game in five years.

During the long wait, Quakers fans will have plenty to ruminate on, such as how …

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s 90-69 Brown throwdown

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Penn junior guard Clark Slajchert looked like his confident early-season self in his team’s 90-69 rout of Brown at the Palestra Saturday night. Slajchert notched a team-high 19 points on 8-for-13 field-goal shooting. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn picked a good time to turn in its best performance of the season.

The Quakers (16-11, 8-4 Ivy) pummeled Brown on Saturday at the Palestra, 90-69, and vaulted themselves into a three-way tie for first place in the Ivy League standings.

Though neither Penn nor the league have provided official confirmation, analytics expert Luke Benz said postgame that the Red and Blue have now clinched a trip to the Ivy League tournament.

Usually, this writer uses the top of these articles to describe some pivotal moment where Penn seals either victory or defeat. The pivotal moment on Saturday was the opening tipoff. The Quakers shot out to a quick 9-0 lead and never looked back. It took a string of circus shots by the Bears (13-12, 6-6) in garbage time to trim Penn’s final margin of victory below 30 points.

Just how good were the Quakers on Saturday? BartTorvik.com, a KenPom competitor, assigns every team in Division I a game score of 0-100 for each game it plays. Think of the number as the probability a team will win through its performance on a given night.

Penn finished with a final game score of 97.

It’s all happy Quakeaways today after the Red and Blue pulled off their biggest Ivy weekend sweep in some time:

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men eking out 66-64 win over Yale

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Jordan Dingle’s shooting clip wasn’t the greatest at the Palestra Friday night, but the junior guard came through in the clutch to help secure Penn’s win over Yale. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn is on the verge of a trip to the Ivy League Tournament after pulling off one of its most thrilling victories in years.

The Quakers (15-11, 7-4 Ivy) took down Yale, 66-64, Friday night in a classic Palestra matchup between two teams that have now split their home-and-home series for six consecutive seasons. The two teams exchanged the lead 14 times. Neither led by more than six points.

Penn took the lead for good when sophomore guard George Smith hit an open three at the top of the key off a nice feed from Max Martz to give the Quakers a 52-50 lead with 7:19 to go.

The end was a sequence of events that likely gave Penn fans heart palpitations. The Quakers held a four-point lead with less than 13 seconds to go, but let Bulldogs (17-7, 7-4) guard John Poulakidas hit an open three with about 5.8 seconds on the clock.

Penn got the ball inbounds without issue, but normally reliable free-throw shooter Clark Slajchert split a pair at the line. Despite getting a chance to tie or win the game, Yale could not get off a final shot before the buzzer sounded.

There’s a lot for Penn fans to process ahead of a Saturday night tilt against Brown, such as how …

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Yale men lose Knowling and tight defensive battle at Penn, 66-64

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Yale lost Matt Knowling to injury in its 66-64 defeat versus Penn at the Palestra Friday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

A key injury spelled doom for Yale at the Palestra in a 66-64 loss to Penn Friday.

With 18 minutes left in the game and the score knotted at 33-33, Yale leading scorer Matt Knowling rolled his ankle. He would not return to the game and his status for tonight against Princeton is questionable.

Penn hung on in a defensive struggle featuring 14 lead changes in which Yale converted just three field goals in the final 5:26. The visitors’ fate was sealed when a fallaway shot landed off base after Yale got the ball back down two with 5.1 seconds left following a 1-for-2 trip to the foul line by Ivy League free-throw percentage leader Clark Slajchert.

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Penn women take revenge on Harvard, 70-64

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Passion! Great performances! Revenge! You could enjoy them all on the radio — the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday broadcast had “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “Pagliacci” — or you could find them at the Palestra in West Philly, where the Penn women took down Harvard, 70-64.

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