Quakeaways after Penn men’s basketball’s 90-61 loss to Yale

Penn’s Saturday matchup against Yale went pretty much according to script.

The Bulldogs opened the game on a 9-0 run and never looked back from there in a 90-61 dismissal of the Quakers at the Palestra. Penn (6-13, 2-4 Ivy) rallied from that opening punch to the mouth and cut the deficit to as little as seven points with 4:38 to go in the first half after a Niklas Polonowski layup.

Yale (13-6, 6-0) responded with an immediate 10-0 run, which was kicked off by a deep open three from stretch big man Nick Townsend. Penn never seriously threatened after.

Instead of recapping what went into an entirely predictable loss, these Quakeaways will instead be reformulated as questions, which will hopefully establish what’s at stake the rest of the season.

Is Steve Donahue coaching for his job?

Everything about Penn’s long-term outlook flows downstream from this question. Pseudonymous college basketball insider Trilly Donovan identified Donahue as a coach on the hot seat on Saturday before tip-off.

It’s difficult to see Penn qualifying for Ivy Madness. If the Quakers bottom out and finish seventh again — or worse, eighth— and around or below 300th in the KenPom rankings, it’s easy to see the administration moving on from Donahue. Penn’s performance has backslid the last two seasons, though a portion of that is due to factors beyond Donahue’s control (we’ll cover the definitive case for and against Donahue later on in the season).

Before this weekend, though, there were clear signs of progress coming from this team. What happens if Penn finishes strong and winds up with a 6-8 Ivy record?

It’s also impossible to ignore that there are several potential Donahue successors who may be on the market this offseason, such as Penn alumni Matt Langel at Colgate and Dave Klatsky at NYU.

Is the backcourt of the future taking shape?

One of the biggest bright spots for Penn this weekend was the continued strong performance of junior wing Ethan Roberts. Despite being harried by Yale’s elite defender Bez Mbeng for much of the evening, Roberts put up 19 points on 17 shots. He was one of only two Penn players who finished with a KenPom offensive rating above the 100 points per 100 possessions breakeven mark.

Sophomore guard Sam Brown finished with 13 points and drained three three-pointers. After a brutal start to the season, Brown looks like himself again.

AJ Levine’s offensive game is still very much a work in progress, but the freshman point guard’s defensive intensity has been a sight to see.

Those three young men could be a decent core next season. But will it stick together? If there’s a coaching change, all bets are off.

Who will be Nick Spinoso’s replacement?

The biggest red flag for the Quakers’ short-term outlook is that there is no one on the roster right now who looks like they can credibly fill Spinoso’s role once the senior big man graduates.

Sophomore Augie Gerhart appears to be the best candidate right now. Though he doesn’t get a ton of shots up, Gerhart plays hard and is an aggressive rebounder. He’s been Penn’s first big off the bench in Ivy play, and it would be nice to see him get more playing time as the season progresses.

Ideally, one of the freshman bigs on the roster — Bradyn Foster or Michelangelo Oberti — would also get extended playing time. The worst-case scenario is that Penn enters the 2025-26 season without any established frontcourt options.

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