ITHACA, N.Y. – Now that’s a super Power.
In a game for the ages, junior TJ Power tallied 44 points to lead Penn men’s basketball past Yale in overtime, 88-84, to an improbable Ivy League Tournament championship at Newman Arena and an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Power’s 44 points were a career high and tied an Ivy Madness record set a year ago when Harmoni Turner also tallied 44 points to lead Harvard women’s basketball to its first Ivy League Tournament title.
Power drilled seven of Penn’s 14 three-pointers in the monumental victory.
But the last one should never have happened.
Leading by three with five seconds left on the clock, Yale coach James Jones called timeout to set his defense as Penn prepared to inbound the ball under its own basket.
Everyone, including Penn coach Fran McCaffery, assumed the Bulldogs would foul rather than let Power shoot a three.
They were wrong.
Guarded by Yale swingman Casey Simmons, Power quickly dribbled the ball up the court and pulled up just beyond the arc on the right side and let the ball fly. It swished the net to tie the game at 75 with two seconds to go. After a last-second heave by Yale guard Trevor Mullin barely missed, the teams headed to overtime.
Are you kidding me? TJ Power’s last-second three ties the game in the Ivy Madness championship for @PennMBB and we’re going to OT. pic.twitter.com/YzHylvLNDn
— Steve Silverman (@gwynnitas) March 15, 2026
In the extra session, Penn harnessed the momentum it had earned at the end of regulation to outscore the Bulldogs 13-9 and win its first Ivy League Tournament championship since 2018.
“We had discussed in our huddle about fouling intentionally to put him on the free throw line, and as a group, we decided not to do it,” Jones explained in his postgame presser. “But all in all, that lies on my shoulders. I’ll take the hit for not fouling at the end to give them an opportunity to get the game to overtime.”
McCaffery understood why Jones decided not to foul.
“We thought they would foul,” McCaffrey admitted. “But a lot of teams don’t because they’re afraid that we know that, and as soon as they come to foul, your rise up and shoot it. Now, you give the guy three [free throws]. We had a tough shot. So you know, I don’t think [Jones] will be criticizing himself. They pressured us to use the entire clock.”
After finishing in seventh place in the Ivy League and firing its coach a year ago, the idea of Penn even qualifying for Ivy Madness this season, let alone winning it, seemed improbable.
But Penn made an insightful move in luring McCaffrey, a 1982 program alum, back to 33rd Street to take the helm of a moribund program.
One of McCaffery’s first moves was to lure Power, whom he had attempted to recruit at Iowa, to transfer from Duke to Penn. The maneuver paid instant dividends as Power transformed from a role player in the ACC to a unanimous First-Team talent in the Ancient Eight.
Despite his heroics, Powers refused to take credit for the win.
“I feel like we’re just fighters,” Power said postgame. “Like yesterday [in Penn’s overtime upset of Harvard], we fought today, [and] it gives me so much energy to know that I’m surrounded by guys that will not give up. So, when I’m hitting shots, that’s great. That helps us win and everything, but if we had a group that just laid over and died, that would take my energy away, too. So I give a lot of credit to those guys.”
One of those guys was senior guard Cam Thrower. The 6-foot-3 playmaker from Los Angeles scored a career-high 19 points on 6-for-10 shooting, including 4-for-6 from downtown.
“It feels amazing, and I appreciate the man to my right for trusting me to make those types of plays,” an exuberant Thrower said in the postgame press conference. “Throughout the year, it’s been about how can I help this team win, no matter what capacity. And tonight, I was able to hit some shots, make some plays. And, you know, it paid off. So, it’s a great feeling to get this win and continue to move on.”
The electric contest between two highly determined foes began with a series of runs and resulted in 13 lead changes.
Yale won the opening tip and jumped out to a 5-0 lead behind Simmons’ baby hook in the paint and a Nick Townsend three.
Penn responded with an 8-0 run.
Power drove to the tin and finished over Samson Aletan to get Penn on the scoreboard. Consecutive treys by Michael Zanoni and Thrower catapulted the Quakers to their first lead, 8-5, at the first media timeout.
After the time stoppage, Yale matched Penn’s 8-0 run behind a series of power moves in the paint by Issac Celiscar, Mullin and Townsend. The Bulldogs led 19-13 at the second media break.
After the second stoppage, Townsend continued to dominate on the inside, drawing a double team and finishing a take to the hoop with an and-one foul on Power. The Ivy League Player of the Year converted the bonus to give Yale its biggest lead of the half, 25-16, at the 8:41 mark.
Once again, the Quakers responded with a run.
A Zanoni triple followed by five straight points by Power, including the junior forward’s third trey, made it a one-point game, 25-24, at the 7:04 mark.
The Quakers seized the lead back when Zanoni found Lucas Leuth cutting to the basket for a thunderous dunk. Penn led 28-27 with 5:11 to play in the half.
The game see-sawed several times before AJ Levine, the hero of Penn’s overtime win on Friday, scored a layup to give Penn a 41-36 lead with 41 seconds to go in the half. Levine finished with nine points and a team-high six assists before fouling out early in the overtime session.
A triple by Simmons ended the first half scoring as Penn took a 41-39 lead into the locker room.
The Quakers were led in the first half by Power’s 23 points and eight rebounds, while Yale was led by Mullins’ 10 tallies. Both teams shot 44% from the field, but Penn’s eight three-pointers, compared with only three for Yale, were the difference in the first frame.
In the second stanza, Yale came out determined to limit Power by doubling him virtually whenever he touched the ball.
Nevertheless, the 6-foot-9 junior found ways to contribute.
Shortly after the first media timeout of the second half, Power found a cutting Thrower with an inbounds pass. Thrower took the ball strong to the tin for the hoop and the harm and the Quakers led 50-46 with 15:06 to play in regulation.
Yale fought back and took the lead on a Mullins trey, 54-52, with just over 13 minutes to play. The junior point guard finished with a team-high 22 points, including 8-for-8 from the charity stripe, to go along with four assists and three rebounds.
Eventually, the Bulldogs wore down the underdogs in the paint behind the bruising post play of Townsend. Three late game layups by the Ivy League Player of the Year put the Bulldogs up by six, 71-65, with just over three minutes left, and it looked like the Ivy League regular season champs would survive.
But Power would not be denied.
The tourney MVP hit two triples in the last seven seconds to get the game into overtime, and from there, it was all Quakers.
“I knew once it went to overtime, that’s our advantage [because] we’re fighters,” Power said. “I just knew we were going to pull away.”
And what did the win mean to McCaffery, who will lead his fifth different program as head coach to the Big Dance?
“They’re all incredible,” said the veteran coach. “But I do think this was a little different. Coming home to my alma mater, I just feel blessed to have this opportunity. I feel blessed that I had [this] group of guys. They bought in, but the way they love another is something that was essentially the reason why we’re here. It’s easy to point fingers, make excuses when you’re not playing as much. We have some really good players and some really good people who don’t play very much, and they support the guys that are in front of them and they celebrate it along with them. And that was evident from the minute I got here.”
Thrilling game! But – asking for a friend who loves Princeton basketball: What to make of an Ivy League champ that got there by leaning in to NIL and the transfer portal?