The Red and Blue got the late stop they needed down three, forcing a wild miss from the host Big Green’s Brandon Mitchell-Day with about 20 seconds left to play. But after securing the rebound, freshman point guard AJ Levine lost the handle as he crossed midcourt.
Dartmouth corralled the loose ball, and after an exchange of free throws and a missed desperation three from Penn’s Ethan Roberts, walked away with a 73-70 win.
The Quakers (4-10, 0-1 Ivy) dropped their Ivy opener for the first time since the 2019-20 season. They’ve only beaten the Big Green (7-7, 1-0) at Leede Arena once since 2019.
It could be a long slog of an Ivy season for the Red and Blue, which rank dead last in the conference in KenPom (307th). They got off to an 0-1 start because …
The three-point arc remains a source of frustration.
Penn made just five of 19 three-point attempts on Saturday, dropping the team’s overall three-point shooting percentage to 29.5% (322nd in the country, per KenPom).
Dartmouth only shot 25% from deep, but on significantly higher volume. The Quakers lost track of Big Green shooters all day and allowed Dartmouth to put up 32 shots from deep, many of which were totally uncontested.
Better Ivy teams won’t go 8-for-32 from beyond the arc like Dartmouth did on Saturday.
Mental mistakes compounded.
Penn committed 16 turnovers for the afternoon, and for a while it looked like that number was going to surpass 20.
Whether it was due to bad passes, no one being open or players losing the handle, the Quakers simply couldn’t find any cohesion with several lineup combinations and had a seven-minute stretch in the first half without a made field goal and a 4:49 stretch early in the second half without a point.
Dartmouth put up a 12-0 run during that latter offensive outage, turning a two-point halftime deficit into a 10-point lead.
The Quakers showed impressive resilience in the second half, climbing out of that hole to take a late lead. But all that good work was negated by unforced errors.
The worst came when Nick Spinoso committed offensive fouls on consecutive possessions inside the five-minute mark in the second half. He picked up a third foul when he got caught up in an altercation with Dartmouth’s Cade Haskins following the second offensive foul, which led to offsetting technicals.
Coach Steve Donahue responded by pulling Spinoso from the game, since his senior big man now had four personal fouls. His replacement, Augie Gerhart, surrendered a go-ahead and-one to Dartmouth’s Ryan Cornish on the next possession.
The Big Green would not surrender the lead the rest of the afternoon.
Sam Brown was a bright spot.
Brown, who is in the midst of a brutal sophomore slump, was removed from the starting lineup on Saturday. He checked into the game before two minutes had elapsed in the first half and looked like a completely different player.
The guard relentlessly attacked the rim and positioned himself well for both offensive and defensive rebounds. Brown finished with 12 points, seven rebounds, and an encouraging KenPom offensive efficiency figure of 112 points per 100 possessions.
Brown missed his only three-point attempt of the game, but if he can contribute as a slasher, he’ll be a valuable offensive weapon.
This team has limited athleticism, shooting and defensive instincts. Overall, I would say this team is, well, limited.