NEWARK, N.J. — It wasn’t pretty, but it was gritty.
Staring down the barrel of a dispiriting opening night loss to KenPom No. 334 NJIT, Penn used a combination of a well-schemed 2-3 zone and a relentless interior attack to slowly turn a 17-point second-half deficit into a 58-57 victory.
The winning moment on Monday night came when junior wing Ethan Roberts got the ball in an isolation backdown on the left block with six seconds to go. The Drake transfer bullied his way into the paint and drew a foul with just 1.6 ticks left on the clock. Roberts missed his first free throw but drained the second, the capper on a 15-point Penn debut.
NJIT got a decent turnaround look for forward Levi Lawal at the buzzer, but the sophomore airballed the jumper and the dozens of Quakers fans assembled in Newark could finally exhale.
There’s plenty for Penn to mull over after a near-certain defeat turned into a celebration, starting with how …
The transfers were as good as advertised.
Roberts and point guard Dylan Williams — a newcomer from juco Triton College — were in the starting lineup on Monday, as expected.
Penn would not have won on Monday without the contributions from either of those young men.
For long stretches of the first half, Penn’s offense looked flat and nonfunctional, with the notable exception of Williams. Williams finished the night with three three-pointers on four attempts and a team-high 17 points. Most of Williams’ buckets came with a much-needed display of emotion, whether it be a pound of the chest or a yell.
Penn needed to lean on Williams in part because Roberts got into awful foul trouble early on. He picked up three personals before seven minutes had elapsed in the game and spent the rest of the first half on the bench.
Once Roberts rejoined the lineup in the second half, it became obvious why coach Steve Donahue spoke so highly of him in the preseason. The offense flowed best when Roberts had the ball with his back to the basket or in a triple-threat position.
It’s hard to believe Monday was Roberts’ first collegiate action since March 2023.
Penn won on Monday with defense first.
Here’s a few stats that should make Penn fans happy. The Quakers held NJIT to 0.89 points per possession, according to KenPom. That’s better than any number Penn put up against a Division I opponent last year save for January’s Ivy League opener against Dartmouth.
After NJIT’s Jordan Rogers hammered home what appeared to be a backbreaking transition dunk with 13:16 to play, the Quakers held the Highlanders off the scoreboard for exactly 9:30, flipping the score from 52-35 to 52-52 in the process.
What worked? Donahue broke out an aggressive 2-3 zone, which had NJIT completely flummoxed at times. Penn was also the beneficiary of some smart hustle plays, such as when sophomore Sam Brown alertly intercepted what appeared to be a harmless NJIT inbounds pass from the sideline on the Highlanders’ side of the floor.
We’re a long way from being able to definitively say that Penn is a good defensive team, but Monday night at least provided some reason for optimism.
There are more kinks to work out in the offense than originally thought.
Donahue set clear expectations in the preseason that Penn would look to roll with more two-big lineups.
The exact combination of bigs that will work is very much a work in progress. Penn started out the evening with Nick Spinoso and Augie Gerhart together and closed the game out with Gerhart playing alongside Johnnie Walter.
Perhaps some of this can be attributed to Roberts’ early foul trouble, but the Quakers struggled to space the floor and get the kinds of clean catch-and-shoot looks that have defined Donahue’s offense for the past few seasons.
A lot of offensive numbers from Monday look positively ugly, such as the 14 missed free throws, 5-for-19 outside shooting performance and 0.91 points per possession offensive efficiency figure.
Four newcomers got minutes in the rotation against NJIT. One has to expect that those aforementioned stats will improve once players have settled into their roles.
FOIWaways on these Quakeaways
1. I’m both encouraged and discouraged by the 2-3 zone. On one hand, it’s great that it’s something in Donahue’s pocket to pull out, that he had the wits to indeed use it and that it worked so well. However, last year’s team became a little too zone happy as he discussed with Sir Wenik preseason and I would like to see this team be able to guard in man.
2. A win is a win: Being able to win ugly is great. Kinda horrified that they were down by 17 and needed to come back, but there have been recent iterations of the Quakers that wouldn’t have been able to overcome this.
3. Spinny?: Only 21 minutes from Spinoso. He’s gonna need to be (a) big (pun-intended) if Penn is gonna be an Ivy contender this year, so an inauspicious beginning. Also, he had three assists and the rest of the team only had two? Concerning, hopefully just a scorer decision thing?