Simone Sawyer went out with a bang, and the Penn women’s basketball team wrapped up its season sooner than it wanted but with an emphatic home win Saturday over Brown, 69-56.
Brooke Suttle
Penn women’s basketball blows by Dartmouth
A day after losing its last chance at Ivy Madness, the Penn women’s basketball team came out and put on a championship-level clinic at Dartmouth, barely missing a shot in the first quarter en route to an 89-66 victory Saturday night.
Penn women’s basketball keeps hope alive by beating Yale
The Penn women’s basketball team got the win it needed Saturday at home – not an inspiring win, not a dramatic one, but a comfortable one against a shorthanded and struggling Yale squad, 68-52, to stay in the race for a slot in Ivy Madness.
Penn women’s basketball clips Cornell in overtime
In the end, Penn women’s basketball coach Mike McLaughlin didn’t talk about Friday’s win at Cornell in terms of the Ivy League standings, though it was crucial.
And he didn’t mention revenge for the loss Cornell dealt Penn in West Philly last month.
He spoke like a fan.
“First of all, it was a great college basketball game,” he told ESPN+.
Penn women’s basketball upsets Columbia at the Palestra
In this least predictable of Ivy women’s basketball seasons, it only makes sense that a fired-up Penn team would bounce back from a loss to Cornell to topple Columbia, 64-55, on Saturday in West Philly.
Brown women’s basketball survives Penn comeback in double overtime
The Penn women’s basketball visit to Brown didn’t figure on being easy for either team. After all, they spent the past two seasons clawing at each other for the fourth slot in the Ivy League Tournament, with Penn claiming the honor both times.
What they produced Saturday was a classic, a double-overtime win for the Bears that looked easy at the start and easy at the finish but was brilliant and exhausting basketball in between. If this is the sort of thing we can expect for the rest of the season, we’ll have a lot of exciting games to watch, and both Brown and Penn will go to the tournament in March.
Ivy women’s semifinal: No. 1 Columbia gets by No. 4 Penn, 60-54
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Despite having multiple double-digit leads, the No. 1-seeded Columbia women couldn’t find a way to dominate No. 4 Penn and had to fight for a full 40 minutes to secure a 60-54 victory in Friday’s opening semifinal of the 2025 Ivy Tournament.
“Credit to them (Penn) for getting to this point and giving us their best,” coach Megan Griffith told the media in the postgame press conference. “Conversely, in our locker room, I don’t think we played our best, but that’s honestly what you’re going to get again in these games.”
With the win, the Lions (23-6) head to the program’s third-ever conference final. A victory in Saturday night’s contest against No. 3 Harvard. which won an instant classic against No. 2 Princeton in the nightcap, would give Columbia its first-ever Ivy Madness title, as well as the Ancient Eight’s automatic bid.
For Penn (15-13), the season is over and the drought for an Ivy League Tournament title now extends to eight years.
“I thought we really played well enough to put them (Columbia) in jeopardy,” Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said. “I’m just so proud that they hung in there … and gave ourselves an opportunity to beat a really good team tonight.”
Penn women’s basketball shows off its youth brigade
The last time we saw the Penn women’s basketball team, it was within seconds of a stunning upset of Princeton in Ivy Madness. Penn may well have succeeded but for an egregious foul call.
The last time we saw the Quakers, forward Jordan Obi was one of the Ivies’ premier players, a 6-foot-1 senior forward with guard skills and linebacker strength.
Now Obi has brought her number zero to the roster of the No. 22 Kentucky Wildcats, and Penn coach Mike McLaughlin is looking through an intriguing collection of new pieces to put together the puzzle of another Ivy contender. He showed them off Saturday at the Palestra in the annual Red and Blue Scrimmage.