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.
Senior guard Mandy McGurk, who came into the day averaging 7.5 points per game on 34% shooting, had a career high in points (28) on 12-for-21 shooting along with five steals and six rebounds. But this wasn’t a one-player win by any means. For the first half in particular, the Quakers moved the ball sharply on offense and harassed the Bears relentlessly on defense. In the end, 21 of Penn’s 28 baskets came with assists, and 30 Penn points came from turnovers (versus 15 for Brown).
The forward combo of Jordan Obi and Floor Toonders was particularly effective. The 6-foot-4 Toonders vacuumed up 11 rebounds as Penn dominated the boards, 44-30. (Penn actually had more offensive rebounds than Brown had defensive boards, 21-19.) And much of Penn’s early scoring flowed through Obi’s hands, as she assisted on more baskets (seven) than she scored (five). When a 6-foot-1 forward has a hot hand from the high post, she’ll draw defenders — and in Obi’s case, she’ll cheerfully dish off to teammates left open.
Penn’s usual leading scorer, senior guard Kayla Padilla, had a perfectly fine game — 13 points on 50% shooting — and senior Sydnei Caldwell had eight points and four rebounds in 16 minutes off the bench.
Penn, which often has relied on three-point shots, sank just six of them, on 16 attempts; it didn’t need more. Brown, which was working from behind, resorted to the three more often, and with less success, shooting just 3-for-21 from long range.
For a team that lost by 20-plus, Brown (7-6, 0-1 Ivy) looked promising. You may have heard it before, year after year: that Brown is young, fast and talented, the Ivy team most likely to pull off upsets. This year’s edition has two freshmen in the starting lineup; one of them, guard Grace Arnolie, led the Bears with 11 points and four steals, and junior Kyla Jones pitched in 10 points. And Brown outscored Penn in the second half, though the game was out of reach. For the day, Brown nearly matched Penn in shooting percentage, 41% to 42%, but it was the balls it lost before it could shoot — and the rebounds Penn claimed after missed shots — that made the difference.
Penn (8-5, 1-0) will continue its home stand with weekend games against Cornell (8-6, 1-0) and Columbia (12-2, 1-0). Brown will be on the road against Harvard (8-5, 1-0) and Dartmouth (2-13, 0-1).