Penn’s season looks all but over after a late offensive outage spelled doom in Providence, R.I.
The Quakers had a chance to draw with one point of Brown with 5:30 to play after junior forward Nick Spinoso hit an and-one layup over the Bears’ Malachi Ndur. Spinoso line-drive bricked the free-throw and the score remained 56-54 in favor of the Bears.
Penn didn’t make another shot from the field until just 45 seconds remained. At that point, the lead for the Bears had swelled to 11 points in what wound up being a 70-61 win for Brown (6-14, 2-3 Ivy).
It’s hard to see the Quakers responding on the second day of a road back-to-back at Yale, the current league co-leader. Penn (9-11, 1-4) may remain mathematically alive to reach Ivy Madness for a few weeks longer, but the hole this team has dug for itself may be too deep to overcome.
There aren’t too many happy Quakeaways for fans to hold onto as they pick through the wreckage of a season that started with such promise.
Penn’s season likely ended when Clark Slajchert went down.
When Slajchert, Penn’s senior leader, rolled his ankle against Houston on Dec. 30, this writer got a sinking feeling when the broadcast showed the guard distraught on the bench.
Slajchert hasn’t played a minute since. Though he looks like he’ll return before the season ends, it may be too little, too late.
Penn, for years, could turn to Jordan Dingle as its go-to guy in difficult situations. Slajchert had filled that role well in 2023-24. Slajchert is one of the main reasons why Penn’s offense was able to function well despite the loss of Dingle to St. John’s and Max Martz to medical retirement.
Losing Slajchert was too great a burden for this team to bear. It was obvious Penn desperately needed a go-to scorer down the stretch on Friday, but no one stepped up.
If Slajchert was around, it’d also be fair to say that the Quakers would have put together a better outside shooting performance than their woeful 3-for-21 effort against the Bears.
It’s time to ride or die with Eddie Holland III.
Holland was the biggest bright spot on Friday night. The junior came off the bench to record a career high 18 points. Holland added 11 rebounds to finish with his first career collegiate double-double.
The only real blemish on Holland’s evening was that he finished 0-for-5 from deep. Holland consistently finished through contact in the lane and hit a Kobe Bryant-esque turnaround jumper near the free-throw line a handful of times.
Most impressively, Holland is a master at drawing fouls. This writer credited Holland with forcing Brown into committing six fouls.
Holland should be getting starter’s minutes the rest of the way.
Tyler Perkins is the main reason to tune in for the rest of the season.
Perkins looks like a star in the making for the Quakers.
He finished with 18 points on 13 shots and added seven rebounds. As the Brown broadcast mentioned, it will be a two-horse race between Perkins and Malik Mack for Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors.
Perkins lifted his nightly scoring average to 14.9 points per game after Friday. For comparison’s sake, Jordan Dingle averaged 13.5 points per game in his Ivy League Rookie of the Year campaign in 2019-20.
Once Slajchert graduates, the keys to this team will be in the hands of Perkins and Sam Brown — who had a quiet night on Friday. Seeing how those two freshmen develop and perform against top competition like Yale and Princeton will be a reason for Penn fans to stay invested.
Ivy back-to-backs are great because then we get the season over with quicker. Anyway, nice to see Perk and Eddie doing their thing.