Penn

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 86-76 loss to Cornell

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Penn competed with Ivy title contender Cornell for long stretches in its Ivy home opener on Saturday, but the end result was what was widely expected: an 86-76 loss.

The Quakers (4-11, 0-2 Ivy) outplayed the Big Red (10-5, 2-0) for the first 15 minutes or so, but the whole game flipped once Cornell’s best big man, AK Okereke, took over.

With 3:58 to go in the first half, Penn was clinging onto a 27-25 lead when forward Nick Spinoso attempted a behind-the-back pass out of the post which Okereke easily intercepted. The junior then proceeded to drain a transition three in Spinoso’s face to give Cornell the lead.

On the next trip down the floor, Spinoso attempted a layup over Okereke which got blocked by the rim. Okereke then hit a transition layup which forced Quakers coach Steve Donahue into a timeout and it was all downhill from there, as the Big Red built a lead as big as 20 points in the second half.

What can Penn fans take away from an underwhelming afternoon?

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Dartmouth women’s basketball tops Penn, 61-49

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There was a time when Dartmouth dominated Ivy League basketball—when the Big Green would win 12 or 13 of their 14 conference games before dancing off to the NCAA Tournament (and, yes, losing to the likes of Purdue, Connecticut and Maryland—this isn’t a fairy tale).
More recently, Dartmouth would lose 12 or 13 or all 14 of those Ivy games. The postseason consisted of waiting (and waiting) for spring to come to New Hampshire.
On Saturday, the Big Green arrived in West Philly to explain to Penn that times have once again changed.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 73-70 loss at Dartmouth

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Penn’s Ivy League campaign got off to a frustrating start on Saturday after a string of bad breaks against Dartmouth when the Quakers could least afford to make a mistake.

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 …

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Solid effort falls short for Penn women’s basketball at Arizona State

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The Penn women’s basketball team went a long way for is loss Monday to Arizona State – not just in flying to the Southwest, not just in challenging a Big 12 team on its home court, but in playing the Sun Devils even or better for seven-eighths of the game before falling, 73-67.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 86-66 loss at Penn State

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Playing on the road as a 25-plus-point Vegas underdog without your best player is typically a recipe for disaster. Penn learned that the hard way roughly this time last year against Houston when star guard Clark Slajchert suffered a season-ruining ankle sprain in an 81-42 beatdown.

By those standards, the Quakers’ Sunday trip to the Bryce Jordan Center to face Penn State was a (relative) success. Despite being without the services of junior wing Ethan Roberts, Penn went toe-to-toe with the Nittany Lions for roughly 25 minutes in an 86-66 defeat.

The Quakers (4-9) went to the locker room down just 34-31 at halftime and were within two points of Penn State (11-2) after senior big man Nick Spinoso bounced in a three-pointer from the left wing to make it a 38-36 game with 17:40 to go in the game. The Nittany Lions responded with an extended 13-3 run to push their advantage to double digits and built a bigger lead from there.

Penn State big man Yanic Konan Niederhauser scored five points in the game-deciding run. He finished with a 19-point, 15-rebound double-double.

What could Penn fans take away from a respectable showing against an NCAA Tournament contender?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 85-53 loss at George Mason

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Penn hasn’t won consecutive games since its 2-0 start to the season in early November. The Quakers will have to wait a little longer to put together a winning streak after familiar problems torpedoed a solid early effort against host George Mason in what ultimately wound up as an 85-53 loss.

For about 15 minutes of game action, Penn (4-8) saw its efficient outside shooting carry over from Friday’s win over Rider. The Quakers started out 6-for-10 from deep and were all level at 23 with the Atlantic 10-contender Patriots with 6:49 left in the first half after senior guard George Smith drained an open transition three from the right wing.

It wound up being Penn’s high-water mark. Penn squandered three chances to take the lead — including a tough-luck moment when junior wing Ethan Roberts just barely missed an open reverse layup following a backdoor cut — before George Mason (8-4) restored order with an extended 12-2 run to end the first half that surely delighted this writer’s father-in-law, a Mason alum.

The Patriots are one of the better defensive teams in the country, and they lived up to that reputation when they held Penn to a paltry 32.2% field goal percentage for the afternoon.

How did it happen? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but …

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 79-66 win over Rider

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PHILADELPHIA — Playing for the first time after an 11-day layoff, Penn turned in its cleanest offensive performance of the season against Rider.

The Quakers never trailed in a 79-66 home win over the Broncs on Friday and put up a blistering 1.27 points per possession, according to KenPom. In a season that has been defined on the offensive end by long outages and poor shot-making, Penn (4-7) finally played at a high level for a full 40 minutes.

There were standouts both familiar and unexpected. Senior forward Nick Spinoso finished with 22 points, one off a career high, while junior wing Ethan Roberts dropped in 20 on 13 shots, including a four-point play that after he drained a straightaway three midway through the first half while absorbing heavy contact from Rider’s Jay Alvarez.

Meanwhile, Rider (4-8) appeared to be asleep at the wheel defensively for stretches. The Broncs repeatedly forgot to cover sophomore wing Niklas Polonowski when he spotted up from distance. Polonowski responded by dropping in 14 points on four made threes to record his first ever double-figure scoring effort against a Division I opponent.

For the first time in a while, it’s all happy Quakeaways:

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Penn women’s basketball squashes Delaware State, 72-45

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The Penn women’s basketball team got an early holiday present Friday: a young Delaware State team it could beat soundly while giving some first-year Quakers time in the spotlight.

With a game-high 14 points off the bench for center Tina Njike (a sophomore sidelined by injuries last season), Penn beat Delaware State, 72-45, at the Palestra for its fifth win in a row, and Del State’s fifth straight loss. At a muscular 6-foot-2, Njike showed strong moves to the rim for Penn (8-3) as well as a good touch from midrange with 6-for-8 shooting and four rebounds, plus 2-for-2 from the free-throw line, in 16 minutes on the court.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 66-47 loss at VCU

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Jon Rothstein typically describes trips to VCU’s Siegel Center as “life-changing.”

It may not have been a particularly life-changing evening for Penn on Monday, but it went a little bit better than expected. The Quakers competed defensively for long stretches in a 66-47 loss to the Atlantic 10 favorite Rams, which could give them a little bit of momentum moving forward.

Penn (3-7) came all the way back from a disastrous start to tie the game at 21 with 7:17 to go in the first half after a nice steal from freshman guard AJ Levine (more on him later) led directly to a transition three from junior wing Ethan Roberts. The Quakers had fallen into a 14-2 hole right off the bat and went nearly 6:30 without a basket after Nick Spinoso scored on Penn’s first possession.

The Rams (8-2) restored order with an extended 18-2 run that spanned the final four minutes of the first half and first three minutes of the second. In a disturbing replay of the game’s beginning, Penn went 6:37 of game action without a bucket.

Penn’s effort level was there on Monday, but so were a lot of the same issues that have plagued this team all season, leading to some depressingly familiar Quakeaways:

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 68-53 loss to Elon

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There really isn’t too much to say in a micro sense about Penn’s 68-53 home loss to Elon on Sunday, which rounded out a 1-2 weekend at the Cathedral Classic Invitational.

The Quakers (3-5) shot 29.7% from the field and even worse from deep, hitting eight of 37 three-point attempts (21.6%). Penn never led, taking an immediate 8-0 punch to the mouth from the Phoenix (5-3) that forced coach Steve Donahue into a timeout less than 90 seconds into the contest.

It was all downhill from there.

Instead of focusing on Sunday’s contest, these Quakeaways will focus more on macro-level observations about Penn at large. Believe it or not, Saturday’s upcoming game against Drexel will be the one-third point of the Quakers’ season.

So, where does Penn stand?

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