Penn

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s romp over Hartford

by
Jordan Dingle’s shooting was efficient inside and out in a win over Hartford Monday. The junior guard went 4-for-8 from three-point range and 9-for-13 from the field overall. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn’s Monday night matchup against Hartford was a lopsided risk-reward proposition.

A win would mean nothing to the Quakers’ postseason ambitions, while a road loss to the second-worst team in Division I (Hartford entered the game 362nd out of 363 teams in KenPom) would have been one of the worst defeats in program history.

After a bit of a dicey start, Penn turned on the jets and left the Hawks behind, 76-52. The nonconference win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Quakers (10-11).

Penn fell behind early, 19-11, and allowed Hartford (4-17) to start out shooting 8-for-10 from the field. But after coach Steve Donahue made a hockey-style line change, the Quakers’ reserves sparked a 26-9 run over the rest of the first half.

Junior guard Jordan Dingle got a lot more action in this matchup against Hartford than he did in the Quakers’ 75-55 win over the Hawks at the Palestra back in November, in which he played just 18 minutes. Dingle poured in 23 points in 28 minutes on Monday, right in line with his season average.

His performance was one of many happy Quakeaways from the victory.

Read more

Yale men boosted by stellar on-ball defense from Mbeng

by
Yale coach James Jones called sophomore guard Bez Mbeng the best on-ball defender he’s ever coached. Mbeng played a critical role in Yale’s 70-63 win over Penn Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

A few things had to go well for Yale to beat Penn last night at John J. Lee Amphitheater and keep its Ivy League title hopes alive.

They did.

Sophomore guard Bez Mbeng played lockdown defense on Penn’s dynamic Jordan Dingle in the second half, holding him to nine points after intermission en route to Yale’s 70-63 win over Penn.

”I love guarding the best player on the other team,” Mbeng said.

”Bez is the best on-ball defender I’ve ever coached,” Yale coach James Jones said, offering high praise in his 24th year at the Bulldogs’ helm after coaching other standout defenders like Trey Phills and Jalen Gabbidon. “He did a fantastic job in the second half on the league’s best offensive player and one of the best in the nation.”

Read more

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s loss at Yale

by
Junior guard Jordan Dingle’s 27 points, largely consisting of six three-pointers made on 11 attempts, weren’t enough to avoid a 70-63 defeat at Yale Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn squandered a golden opportunity to gain position in the race for Ivy Madness on Saturday after another brutal second-half offensive performance led to a 70-63 loss at Yale.

The Quakers (9-11, 2-4 Ivy) lost despite a 27-point performance from superstar Jordan Dingle in which the guard hit six three-pointers. After a nice hook shot from Penn sophomore forward Nick Spinoso tied the game at 49 coming out of the under-12 media timeout in the second half, the Red and Blue promptly committed turnovers on their next seven offensive possessions over nearly four minutes of game time.

Dingle, as great as he was on Saturday, committed turnovers on three of those trips, including an offensive foul.

Despite that brutal stretch, Penn still nabbed a 54-53 lead with roughly 5:50 remaining after guard George Smith hit an open three-pointer off an inside-out feed from center Max Lorca-Lloyd. But Yale (13-6, 3-3) immediately responded with a go-ahead jumper from junior guard August Mahoney.

Mahoney would later stick the dagger in the Red and Blue with roughly 90 seconds left. After Dingle hit a tough three to draw Penn within 62-60, Mahoney responded out of a Bulldogs timeout with an and-one finish over Spinoso which extended the Yale lead to five and effectively ended the game.

The Quakers lost a game which KenPom and Vegas expected them to lose. But the way they got there should leave fans with reason for both consternation and hope.

Read more

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s fast fade-out in loss to Princeton

by
Penn men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue has work to do to help turn around a season starting to head south after a third loss in four games and seventh straight loss to Princeton Monday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

PHILADELPHIA — Penn’s season looks like it’s on the verge of spinning out of control after the Quakers delivered a dispiriting offensive performance en route to a 72-60 home defeat against archrival Princeton.

If you had told the average Quakers fan prior to the game that Penn (9-10, 2-3 Ivy) would hold Princeton (13-5, 4-1) to 40.4% shooting from the field, four made three-pointers on 25 attempts and just six assists on 23 made baskets, they would have told you that the Red and Blue would likely win by double digits.

Instead, the Quakers one-upped the Tigers’ offensive futility. Penn failed to make a single three-pointer on Monday, and, in fact, has not hit a single shot from long distance since Jordan Dingle’s four-point play opportunity with 3:29 to go in the first half of Penn’s Saturday loss to Dartmouth.

The backbreaking sequence for the Quakers came with roughly 10:38 to go in the second half and Princeton up two, 40-38. The Tigers’ Ryan Langborg freed himself from Penn’s Andrew Laczkowski for a decent look at a three and drained the shot. Penn forward Nick Spinoso was simultaneously called for a foul away from the ball.

Princeton was in the bonus, so standout freshman Caden Pierce calmly drained both ends of a one-and-one to complete the five-point possession. The Tigers’ lead was just seven points, 45-38, but it may as well have been 20, given Penn’s offensive struggles.

Most of the Quakeaways from Monday are ugly, so look away if you must:

Read more

Princeton men pull away at Palestra to beat Penn for seventh straight time, 72-60

by
Defending Ivy Player of the Year Tosan Evbuomwan turned in a typically robust stat line in Princeton’s win at Penn Monday: 26 points, seven rebounds and three assists in 32 minutes. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark reports on how the Princeton men pulled away at the Palestra to defeat Penn, 72-60, for a seventh consecutive time:

Audio Player

Princeton women stymie Penn, 55-40

by

Our George “Toothless Tiger” Clark delivers a courtside report following Princeton women’s basketball’s shutdown of Penn at Jadwin Gym Monday afternoon:

Audio Player

 

Penn women breeze past Dartmouth, 69-57

by
Four starters scored in double figures to push the Penn women to a convincing 69-57 win over Dartmouth Saturday afternoon. It’s the 11th win in a row for Penn (12-5, 4-0 Ivy), the last 10 of them in the friendly confines of the Palestra.
The young Dartmouth team (2-16, 0-4) showed potential that belies its record and its position as the Ancient Eighth. Still, Penn led all the way, and the game was never in serious doubt after the first quarter, when the Quakers built an 18-10 lead. A three by Dartmouth junior guard Mekkena Boyd cut the Penn lead to six early in the third quarter, but junior forward Jordan Obi answered with a three of her own, and the lead never dropped below nine again.

Read more

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s defeat at Dartmouth

by
Steve Donahue’s Penn men’s squad couldn’t protect a four-point lead in the final four and a half minutes at Dartmouth, getting outscored 14-6 in that span to drop to 2-2 in Ivy play. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn men’s basketball is going to have a long, long bus ride home from Hanover, N.H.

The Quakers threw away a 13-point second half lead and made a series of critical errors in crunch time en route to a 75-71 loss to Dartmouth at Leede Arena.

The defeat at Dartmouth (6-12, 2-2 Ivy) was painfully reminiscent of Penn’s collapses against Saint Joseph’s and La Salle in Big 5 play. In all three contests, Penn (9-9, 2-2) threw away games against inferior opponents it should have easily defeated.

Saturday’s turning point came with about 99 seconds remaining and Penn holding the ball up one, 71-70. Steve Donahue had called timeout to get junior guard Clark Slajchert back in the game for an offense-defense substitution.

Almost immediately after the ball was inbounded, Slajchert used his shoulder to create a little separation from Dartmouth sophomore guard Ryan Cornish, then hoisted a contested three-pointer after just five seconds had come off the shot clock. The ball caught front iron with no Quakers having a prayer at corralling an offensive rebound.

The shot was one Slajchert could hit, but it was far from the best look Penn could have gotten on that possession given the time and score. The Quakers surrendered a game-winning floater from Big Green junior forward Dusan Neskovic 20 seconds after the miss.

But Slajchert wasn’t alone in suboptimal decision-making among the Red and Blue Saturday afternoon:

Read more