PHILADELPHIA — What briefly looked like an opportunity for Penn to snatch a signature win in Fran McCaffery’s first season as head coach spiraled over the course of a half-hour into a nightmare that recreated the worst moments of the Quakers’ last two nightmarish seasons.
Just like last season, Penn played Villanova competitively on Saturday for about 15 minutes of game time. Once again, the game devolved into a blowout. This time, the Wildcats put up 1.36 points per possession in a 90-63 rout that delivered Villanova a Big 5 title.
After junior wing Lucas Lueth tied the score at 27 with an open catch-and-shoot three from the left wing, Villanova (7-1, 3-0 Big 5) went on a 17-2 run to break the game open, which was capped off by two runout layups off turnovers in the final 15 seconds of the first half. The Wildcats were never seriously threatened after that.
The final score, though, was ultimately a secondary concern. The season itself for Penn (5-4, 3-1) is at a crossroads after senior wing Ethan Roberts went down with a scary-looking injury early in the second half. Roberts took an inadvertent high hit while being called for a foul, seized up for a few moments while crumpled in a heap on the ground, and then looked visibly unsteady returning to his feet before walking off the floor under his own power.
McCaffery did not comment on the specific nature of Roberts’ injury but said his player was headed to the hospital.
Roberts’ injury brings back bad memories of the ankle sprain Clark Slajchert suffered in a blowout loss to powerhouse Houston just before New Year’s in 2023. By the time Slajchert returned, Penn was in too deep of a hole to seriously compete for an Ivy Madness spot.
Where do the Quakers go from here?
The Roberts injury will have an offensive ripple effect.
It’s inappropriate to speculate as to how long Roberts will be out, but it’s hard to see him returning in the near future.
Losing Roberts takes away Penn’s best source of dribble penetration at a time where its offense is being bifurcated into two extremes: The Quakers are one of the best three-point shooting teams in Division I and one of the worst teams in the country at interior scoring.
Penn shot 11-for-22 on threes Saturday, which lifted its team three-point shooting percentage against Division I opponents to 41.6%, the sixth-best mark in the nation, per KenPom. The Quakers shot 35.7% on 37 two-point attempts.
Per Bart Torvik, Penn has taken almost as many long twos (135) as it has threes (139) against Division I opponents. The Quakers are shooting 33.8% on those long twos. On shots defined by Bart Torvik as ‘close’ — which excludes dunks — Penn is shooting 54.5%. For peer context on that figure, Yale is shooting is 63.5% on close twos.
To be clear, not all of those long twos are bad shots. Senior wing Michael Zanoni, for example, has developed a knack for drilling catch-and-shoot free-throw line or baseline jumpers.
But unless Penn can find some way to consistently break down opponents and get good inside looks, teams are going to sell out to force the Quakers’ shooters off the three-point line.
The point guard play was generally pretty good.
AJ Levine, Cam Thrower and Jay Jones all finished with KenPom offensive ratings above the breakeven mark of 100 points per 100 possessions.
All three had moments to hang their hats on. Levine scored nine points on seven shots, including a three on the Quakers’ opening possession. Thrower played with a special level of emotion and intensity and drained three threes in the first half. Jones put up a team-best KenPom offensive rating of 154 points per 100 possessions, though that comes with the caveat that the 15 minutes the freshman played were all low-leverage.
Jones in particular looks like an intriguing prospect. He’s big (6-foot-3), plays hard, and hasn’t been afraid to shoot. With the rotation sure to reshuffle in Roberts’ absence, Jones could be in line for some extended action, perhaps at the two alongside Levine and or Thrower.
The three-point defense left much to be desired.
Usually, when a heavy underdog shoots 50% from deep and drains 11 threes, it’s a recipe for an upset.
Not so on Saturday night. The Wildcats drained 15 of 31 attempts from long distance. Some of those were well-contested, but there were plenty more — especially some of the attempts from Villanova’s Matthew Hodge in the first half — that were the product of wide-open catch-and-shoot opportunities.
That simply will not fly in Ivy League play. As great as Penn has been shooting the basketball from deep, Columbia and Cornell have been almost as good and Yale even better. The Lions and Big Red respectively rank seventh and 10th nationally in three-point percentage against Division 1 opponents; Yale ranks second.
Really like what we saw out of Jay Jones, and AJ showed some really solid moments both with his weaving through the defense to create shots as well as his confidence in his jumpshot, though it’s hard to overlook his two turnovers where he simply threw it out of bounds against pressure.
But man, the Ethan injury was scary. There’s no positives to take after that, just hoping he’s OK because head injuries, which is what it looked like, are rough.