Bradyn Foster

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 82-72 loss at Brown

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Any realistic hope Penn had of reaching Ivy Madness died on Saturday night after the Red and Blue staggered through a road loss to Brown, 82-72, on the second night of a back-to-back.

Though Penn (6-16, 2-7 Ivy) was competitive throughout the evening and cut the deficit to as little as one point in the second half, the Quakers never led. A stepback three from Brown (12-10, 4-5 Ivy) superstar Kino Lilly Jr. pushed the Bears’ lead back to four with 10 minutes to go and Penn never seriously threatened after.

Brown is now effectively three games ahead of Penn thanks to its head-to-head sweep of the Red and Blue.

Instead of focusing on the minutiae of the game itself, this Saturday’s Quakeaways will serve as a progress report on the long-term questions I asked a few weeks ago:

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Quakeaways after Penn men’s basketball’s 90-61 loss to Yale

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Penn’s Saturday matchup against Yale went pretty much according to script.

The Bulldogs opened the game on a 9-0 run and never looked back from there in a 90-61 dismissal of the Quakers at the Palestra. Penn (6-13, 2-4 Ivy) rallied from that opening punch to the mouth and cut the deficit to as little as seven points with 4:38 to go in the first half after a Niklas Polonowski layup.

Yale (13-6, 6-0) responded with an immediate 10-0 run, which was kicked off by a deep open three from stretch big man Nick Townsend. Penn never seriously threatened after.

Instead of recapping what went into an entirely predictable loss, these Quakeaways will instead be reformulated as questions, which will hopefully establish what’s at stake the rest of the season.

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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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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 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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