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.
The hype looks real for Tyler Perkins
Perkins is the member of the Quakers’ four-person recruiting class with the strongest pedigree.
The 6’4” guard picked Penn over a host of mid-major powerhouses, including Colgate, Vermont and Harvard. He then proceeded to dominate in Nike’s prestigious Kenner League summer hoops circuit in Washington, D.C. and was named as City of Basketball Love’s Preseason Big 5 Rookie of the Year.
Perkins scored 15 points on 12 shots. That’s not eye-popping at first glance. It was how Perkins got there that looked impressive. He moved smoothly away from the ball and appears to already have strong chemistry with Penn’s most important returnees: senior guard Clark Slajchert and junior forward Nick Spinoso.
Case in point: Midway through the first half, Perkins gave Slajchert the ball on a handoff, then used an off-ball screen to roll free to the basket for an easy lob. Perkins got fouled before he could convert the bucket, but he easily drained the two ensuing free throws.
Perkins also looked particularly aggressive on the defensive end; he wound up collecting three steals.
It will be fun to see how Perkins performs against stronger competition as the season wears on.
Cam Thrower looks like he has a real role
Thrower gathered a start on Monday and wound up playing 20 minutes. That’s the most run he’s gotten since a 23-minute showing against Division III Wilkes last December.
The main knock on Thrower last year was that he looked tentative to shoot or attack at times on offense. It was odd considering that he had a reputation as a strong shooter in high school.
On Monday, Thrower showed no hesitation whatsoever. He drilled three three-pointers on different spots on the floor in the game’s early going. Thrower was ready and willing to pull the trigger on catch-and-shoot opportunities, which is a nice change from last year.
If Thrower can keep up that aggression throughout the season, he could be another interesting player to watch.
Games like Monday are just part of life for Ivy teams now.
Attendance at the Palestra was just 636 people on Monday, which is not terribly surprising for a game between a team that’s 215th in the preseason KenPom rankings and a Division III school.
Fans disappointed in the low-wattage opener — and the Quakers’ December 6 game against Division III Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham — should recognize that this is a broader problem within college basketball as power conference schools try to hoard home games.
Yale, Princeton, Cornell and Dartmouth have two home games scheduled against non-Division I opponents, while Columbia has three.
It’s absurd that teams ranked 71st in KenPom (Yale) and coming off Sweet 16 runs (Princeton) have to dig so far to get home games. It’s a minor miracle that Penn still has the opportunity to play Villanova at home and has a semi-home opportunity coming up against Kentucky at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.