Penn men’s basketball picked up a critical victory in its first extended road trip of Ivy League play on Saturday, taking advantage of a spectacular second half to down Dartmouth, the last unbeaten team in the league standings, 84-74.
The Quakers (9-7, 2-1 Ivy) overcame a string of early self-imposed issues thanks to dominant halves from their two best players. Ethan Roberts carried the team in the first half while TJ Power was confined to the bench with foul trouble; Power scored nine points in the 12-0 run early in the second stanza which gave the Quakers the lead for the rest of the afternoon.
Power lived up to his last name during that decisive run. He started it off by dribbling into a wide-open three, then gave the Quakers the lead with a spinning drive on Dartmouth (8-8, 2-1) wing Jayden Williams. No one the Big Green threw at Power could handle the 6-foot-9 junior.
Suddenly, the Ivy season looks wide-open for the Quakers, who are now in a five-way tie for the league lead. Monday’s matchup with fellow 2-1 team Harvard looms as a massive opportunity.
What did Penn fans learn from a happy start to the long weekend?
The Quakers have an athleticism advantage over most Ivy opponents.
How long has it been since the above sentence has been true? The bottom fell out on the Steve Donahue era thanks in large part to a poisonous cocktail of poor defense prompted by physical deficiencies.
The arrival of Power, a former five-star recruit who is a matchup nightmare for mid-major opponents is the most visible sign of Penn’s athletic improvement. But everyone in the Quakers’ rotation has developed physically in some form this season. Penn was able to build its second half lead on Saturday in large part due to the foul trouble it caused for Dartmouth’s two best players: Brandon Mitchell-Day and Kareem Thomas. Both had to sit for long stretches after they got their third fouls.
Roberts and sophomore point guard AJ Levine deserve special plaudits. Roberts drew numerous fouls on drives to the basket, while Levine tied the score just before the halftime break with a one-handed power jam, then added a second dunk later on. Not bad for a 6-foot-0 point guard.
Is there any doubt at all, by the way, that Roberts is bound for First Team All-Ivy honors? He dropped 25 on Saturday and is now averaging 24 points per game through three league contests.
This team is getting better, and fast.
By any objective measure, the Quakers are one of the most improved teams in all of Division I this season. As this story was being written, Penn sits 189th in KenPom, up 86 slots from its preseason rank.
Penn is now shooting 40.3% as a team from three-point range against Division I opponents after a 9-for-17 showing on Saturday. That’s the fifth-best percentage in the sport, per KenPom. At this point, it’s not just sample size noise. For context, the Quakers shot 32.6% as a team from deep last season, 240th in the country.
Even the much-maligned Quakers defense is showing signs of growth. Penn won the turnover battle, 13-5, and held Dartmouth to 1.02 points per possession. Once Power was on the floor in the second half, things settled down.
Penn finished 323rd in overall defensive efficiency last season, per KenPom, allowing an opponent-adjusted 115.1 points per 100 possessions. The Quakers presently rank 250th in defensive efficiency and are allowing an opponent-adjusted 112.9 points per 100m possessions.
Those numbers still need to improve, but they aren’t disastrous.
The job is nowhere near close to over.
Saturday also showed that the Quakers still have plenty of work to do in their first season under coach Fran McCaffery.
The biggest statistical red flag was Penn’s lack of reserve production. The five Quakers who came off the bench on Saturday — Jay Jones, Niklas Polonowski, Lucas Lueth, Dalton Scantlebury and Cam Thrower — combined to score three points on 10 shots from the field.
Roberts wound up playing 38 minutes in his third game back following a severe concussion that cost him a month of action. Power’s foul trouble may have been a blessing in disguise, as he wound up playing just 27 minutes. The Quakers run the risk of running down players like Roberts, Power and Michael Zanoni if they’re playing 35-plus minutes a night during back-to-backs.
Scantlebury and Thrower in particular have been major plus factors at several points throughout the season. Both of those young men will need to step up as the season progresses.