Brown women’s basketball comes back to take crucial game from Penn in 61-59 win

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In case you had any doubts, it turns out the Brown women’s basketball team is for real. And Kyla Jones is one of the biggest reasons.

Everybody knew Saturday would be a big night for Jones. The senior guard from Chicago needed just one point to reach 1,000, a rare milestone even more remarkable because COVID canceled her freshman season. But with a shot at Ivy Madness on the line, the 1,000 points became an afterthought as Jones led Brown’s come-from-behind victory, including the winning basket on a contested left-handed layup with 1.5 seconds left to beat Penn in Providence, 61-59.

Jones led all scorers with 22 points on 11-for-21 shooting, adding five rebounds, three assists and two steals. Twelve of her points came in the fourth quarter. Her final seven shots of the game were good. Brown, which trailed most of the game but never by much, was down 57-51 with about three minutes left but finished with a 10-2 burst.

In huddles as the game wound down, “We just kept telling them, like, ‘This is ours,’ and ‘This is our house,’ and, you know, ‘We’re getting this,'” Brown coach Monique LeBlanc told ESPN+ afterward.

As for Jones, LeBlanc said, “She’s so clutch. I told her, ‘This isn’t high school. When you score your 1,000th, I’m not calling a timeout. I need those for the end of the game.’ And sure enough, I did. She was like, ‘No problem.'”

Almost matching Jones on the other side of the ball was Penn freshman point guard Mataya Gayle, who scored 11 of her 19 points in the fourth quarter as she demonstrated why she’s the clear pick for Ivy rookie of the year. And when she took the inbounds pass with 1.5 seconds left and Penn down by two, she launched a shot from three-quarters of the court away, and the three-pointer was halfway down before the Pizzitola Sports Center basket coughed it out.

If you had doubts about Brown being good enough to beat Penn and make the conference tournament, it may be because you saw these two teams play in West Philly two weeks earlier. The Quakers won by 21, and the Bears looked flummoxed. But on Friday, they gave league-leading Princeton a serious scare, and Saturday’s win was no fluke.

Also hitting double figures Saturday for Brown was freshman guard Olivia Young, with 13 points on 5-for-9 shooting and three steals. Sophomore forward Ada Anamekwe had nine points on 4-for-8 shooting as well as nine rebounds.

For Penn, junior Stina Almqvist registered 12 points, 10 rebounds and three steals, and senior Jordan Obi notched 16 points and eight rebounds. Penn took the battle for the boards, 41 to 32, but Brown won with points off turnovers (18 to Penn’s nine) and points in the paint (44 to 24).

Brown carries a 5-5 Ivy record into the four final games on its schedule, with Penn at 4-6 and Yale at 3-7.

Brown’s next two games, at Harvard and hosting Columbia, are bound to be tough. But if Brown can take its final two games against Cornell and Yale, as it already has this season, Penn must beat Cornell and Dartmouth plus either Harvard or Princeton just to tie for fourth place.