Penn women’s basketball has punched a ticket to Ivy Madness.
The Quakers clinched a slot in the Ivy League Tournament Saturday with a wild and crazy 69-67 win over Harvard at the Palestra. They’ll join the third-place Crimson, Princeton and Columbia in the tourney at Columbia’s Levien Gym March 15-16 to compete for a berth (or maybe two) in the NCAA Tournament.
Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said afterward that he hadn’t known that a win against Harvard would lock in the trip to the conference tournament. He may have been the only one in a raucous crowd of 1,100 who wasn’t intensely aware of that. “It was a point of discussion” among the players leading up to the game, senior forward Jordan Obi told reporters after the team’s celebration — dancing with the Penn Band, then drenching the coach in the locker room.
Obi was as responsible as anyone for the win. In a physical game against Harvard’s strong frontcourt, she had five rebounds and a game-high seven assists along with 15 points, including the clinching free throws with two seconds left — a hell of a way to celebrate Senior Day and her final game at the Palestra.
“I love Obi’s game. I’d take her on my team in a heartbeat,” Harvard coach Carrie Moore said. “She’s a ton of fun to watch.”
Unlike Penn, Harvard wasn’t playing for serious consequences — but Moore said that didn’t mean the Crimson weren’t motivated: “We came out firing. We started the game really well. We want to win. We want to show we can win these games.”
In fact, the Crimson started with a Lola Mullaney three (on her way to 18 points for the day) and built their biggest lead of the game, 16-5, in the next five minutes by consistently penetrating the paint for layups. But Penn fought back with hot outside shooting — including a buzzer-beater at the quarter by Lizzy Groetsch — and took a one-point lead at the quarter and into halftime. Penn went a sizzling 7-for-13 on threes in the first half.
Penn’s lead grew to 11 midway through the third on a 12-point scoring run, but Harvard chipped away and ended the third quarter with a buzzer-beater to grab the lead back, 51-49. Penn wrested the lead back in part on clutch shooting by Stina Almqvist (a team-high 17 points on 6-for-12 from the field) and freshman Ese Ogbevire, who capped her 14-point day with a drive into contact that sent her to the floor with 1:19 left. Her shot took a most leisurely roll around the rim before dropping in, and Ogbevire canned the foul shot to put Penn up by three.
Harvard’s Harmoni Turner kept the drama going with three baskets in the space of a minute, but that minute was all that was left, so Harvard had to keep fouling, and Penn’s players kept making the foul shots. For the day, Turner had a game-high 19 points on 8-for-13 shooting plus four assists and two steals. And forward Elena Rodriguez, continuing her comeback from injury, had a dozen points and a half-dozen rebounds.
All told, the two teams traded the lead seven times and were tied four times. This is how evenly matched they were: Each team shot 23-for-54 (42.6%), each had 15 assists, each had three blocks, and Harvard had a slight edge on rebounds, 33-31.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Moore said. “I obviously don’t love the outcome, and this outcome does not define our basketball team, I think we’re making strides. I’m really excited to see how we finish.”