Penn men’s basketball responded to a difficult overtime loss with arguably its best top-to-bottom performance of the season.
The Quakers dominated a Monmouth team that had won its last three games, 76-61, to wrap up the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic round robin with a 2-1 record.
Penn (5-3) took control with an extended 19-4 run midway through the first half over roughly eight minutes of game time that flipped the score from 19-13 in favor of the Hawks to a 32-23 Quakers lead.
A deep Sam Brown three from the right wing off a pretty drive and kick by Tyler Perkins gave Penn a 23-21 lead it would not relinquish for the rest of the day.
It’s all good vibes for Penn on Sunday, led by how …
George Smith made a case to start.
Coach Steve Donahue opted for a little small ball on Sunday, replacing Eddie Holland III in the starting lineup with the 6’4” Smith at the “four.”
Smith responded by putting up 10 points on eight shots and adding four assists.
The prettiest of those assists came with five minutes left in the second half when Smith drove from the sideline, attracted a handful of Monmouth defenders, and made a slick bounce pass in the lane to find big man Augie Gerhart for an easy layup. The bucket helped turn away a Hawks rally that had shrunk Penn’s lead from 20 points to just seven.
Most importantly, Smith helped erase Monmouth’s best player, senior guard Xander Rice. Rice scored just five points on 10 shots and missed six of his seven three-point attempts. A few weeks earlier, Rice went off for 30 points to lead Monmouth to a big upset over West Virginia on the road.
Smith’s perimeter defensive skills and his solid three-point shot make him a valuable rotational asset at a bare minimum.
Penn put together another clean game offensively.
The Quakers turned the ball over fewer than 10 times for the third consecutive game on Sunday, winding up with just eight giveaways. Every Penn player who logged significant minutes put up a KenPom offensive rating above 100 points per 100 possessions.
In fact, Penn wound up recording 1.2 points per possession on offense, which is its most efficient showing against a Division 1 opponent all season.
The Quakers certainly passed the eye test, as well. They had a few possessions where some Harlem Globetrotters-esque ball movement ended in wide-open threes.
The prettiest of those sequences came when senior forward Nick Spinoso two-hopped a behind-the-back pass along the baseline through a swarm of Monmouth defenders to find senior guard Clark Slajchert for an open corner three.
Performances like Sunday make Penn look like a threat to score consistently on almost any team.
Niklas Polonowski put up some good minutes.
At some point, Penn was going to need to dig deeper into its bench as it wrapped up a stretch of three games in three days.
Polonowski, a freshman, got the call-up. In a five-minute cameo, he put up a quick five points, including a nice corner three.
The last time Polonowski got extended action, against Division III John Jay, he struggled with his outside stroke and made only one three on six attempts. He had played a grand total of one minute since.
Perhaps Sunday was a sign of good things to come for the swingman.