Cam Thrower

Quakeaways from No. 14 Penn men’s basketball’s NCAA Tournament loss to No. 3 Illinois

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The Penn men’s basketball team and supporters take in the scene after Penn’s 105-70 loss to Illinois in the NCAA Tournament Round of 64 at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, S.C. on March 19, 2026. (Ian Wenik/Ivy Hoops Online)

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Undermanned and outgunned, No. 14 Penn men’s basketball put up a fight against No. 3 Illinois in the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the better part of a half.

But that was all the Quakers could muster in what wound up as a 105-70 defeat.

The Quakers (18-12) entered Thursday night’s matchup against the Fighting Illini with its two best players compromised. Leading scorer Ethan Roberts had been ruled out earlier in the week after suffering his second concussion of the season, while TJ Power, the hero of last week’s Ivy League Tournament, fell ill in the days leading up to the game and needed what coach Fran McCaffery estimated were four or five IVs to even be able to play.

“TJ wasn’t himself,” McCaffery said during a postgame press conference. The junior forward — who rarely comes off the floor — went back to the locker room twice during the game and was too ill to join his teammates as they showed their appreciation to a strong contingent of Quakers fans.

“When I took him out that last time, I was not going to put him back in the game,” McCaffery said of Power. “It would not have been fair to him.”

As for the action on the court itself? It was no surprise that the size of Illinois, the nation’s tallest team by average height, dictated the game. Penn actually outshot the Fighting Illini in the first half but entered the locker room down 10 points because Illinois had racked up 16 second-chance points and a plus-14 rebounding margin.

The Quakers cut the deficit to nine with about 16:45 to play after wing Michael Zanoni bounced in a straightaway three, but Illinois immediately responded with a 14-2 run which effectively ended the game.

For Penn, the book is officially sealed on its 2025-26 season. What did Penn fans learn from its final chapter?

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Quakeaways from No. 3 Penn men’s basketball’s Ivy League Tournament final win over No. 3 Yale

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ITHACA, N.Y. – Penn men’s basketball is headed to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in eight years after outlasting Yale in overtime, 88-84, in one of the greatest games in recent Ivy League history Sunday at Newman Arena.

The Quakers (18-11) needed a transcendent performance from forward TJ Power to pull off the Ivy League Tournament final upset with leading scorer Ethan Roberts back in Philadelphia, sidelined with a concussion.

Boy, did Power deliver. The junior had a 44-point detonation, which matched Hassan Duncombe for the program’s single-game scoring record since it joined the Ivy League in 1954. Power personally erased what was a four-point Penn deficit with 12 seconds to play by simply dribbling into three-pointers on consecutive possessions.

The last of those threes, a contested shot from the right wing, tied the game at 75 with a second to go in regulation. Yale guard Trevor Mullin (who had hit two clutch free throws to extend the lead to three before Power’s heroic shot) nearly sank a three-quarter-court heave as the buzzer sounded, but it clanged off the back iron.

In overtime, Power — whose free-throw shooting struggles this season have been well-documented — put the Quakers ahead for good with 3:02 left in the extra session following two makes from the charity stripe. He got a ton of help from senior guard Cam Thrower, who had a five-point scoring burst in a 40-second span to give the Red and Blue some critical breathing room.

In his first campaign running his alma mater, coach Fran McCaffery has pulled off one of the biggest single-season turnarounds in recent college basketball memory.

What should Penn fans hold onto from an afternoon of unbridled joy?

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TJ Power lifts No. 3 Penn past No. 1 Yale in instant classic Ivy League Tournament final to earn NCAA berth

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Penn men’s basketball celebrates its 2026 Ivy League Tournament championship at Newman Arena on March 15, 2026.  (Steve Silverman | Ivy Hoops Online)

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.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard

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PHILADELPHIA — Merry clinchmas, Quakers fans.

Penn ended its three-year Ivy Madness drought with a weekend sweep at the Palestra of Dartmouth and Harvard. The Quakers (15-11, 8-5 Ivy) are locked into the three seed and a rubber match with Harvard (16-11, 9-4) in two weeks.

Unsurprisingly, the road to that aforementioned sweep was anything but linear. The Quakers needed to erase halftime deficits against both Dartmouth (11-15, 5-8) and the Crimson. On Friday, junior forward TJ Power pretty much singlehandedly carried the team over the line against the Big Green, dropping a career-high 38 points as the Quakers notched a closer-than-it-looked 80-71 win.

One night later, Penn played an excellent half of complementary offensive and defensive basketball to flip a 31-21 Crimson halftime lead into a 64-61 triumph.

Of course, any game against Harvard these days has to come with some late drama. The Crimson had a wide-open shot from deep to tie the game at the buzzer for elite shooter Tey Barbour after senior guard Cam Thrower slipped and fell while attempting to either foul or guard the Harvard guard.

Any Penn fan who’s been around long enough to remember the “Bryce Aiken game” in 2019 had to expect Barbour’s shot was going down. But maybe — just maybe — Barbour’s shot clanging off the rim is a sign that things have truly turned around for this program.

What else could Penn fans hold onto from one last successful homestand?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s win over Princeton

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PHILADELPHIA — The streak is dead.

After 14 consecutive losses to its most hated rivals, Penn finally — finally — took out hated Princeton at the Palestra on Saturday by the thinnest of margins, 61-60. The Quakers (11-10, 4-4 Ivy) now sit atop a four-team morass in third place in the Ivy League and hold their destiny in their own hands.

It should have surprised no one that Penn needed to extend to its absolute limit to finally take out the Tigers (8-15, 4-4). The Quakers led by as many as 12 points in the second half on the back of some intense defense, but an extended offensive outage let Princeton climb back into the game.

The afternoon came down to a one-on-one defensive stand by Quakers sophomore point guard AJ Levine against the Tigers’ best player, Dalen Davis. Levine poked the ball away from Davis at the top of the key as the game clock wound below 10 seconds, then forced Davis into a difficult contested midrange jumper which caught front iron and bounced harmlessly away.

Levine was mobbed by his teammates as he flexed to the crowd, a moment of catharsis after eight years of frustration of heartbreak.

What did Quakers fans learn from an exhilarating day?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball downing Dartmouth

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Penn men’s basketball picked up a critical victory in its first extended road trip of Ivy League play on Saturday, taking advantage of a spectacular second half to down Dartmouth, the last unbeaten team in the league standings, 84-74.

The Quakers (9-7, 2-1 Ivy) overcame a string of early self-imposed issues thanks to dominant halves from their two best players. Ethan Roberts carried the team in the first half while TJ Power was confined to the bench with foul trouble; Power scored nine points in the 12-0 run early in the second stanza which gave the Quakers the lead for the rest of the afternoon.

Power lived up to his last name during that decisive run. He started it off by dribbling into a wide-open three, then gave the Quakers the lead with a spinning drive on Dartmouth (8-8, 2-1) wing Jayden Williams. No one the Big Green threw at Power could handle the 6-foot-9 junior.

Suddenly, the Ivy season looks wide-open for the Quakers, who are now in a five-way tie for the league lead. Monday’s matchup with fellow 2-1 team Harvard looms as a massive opportunity.

What did Penn fans learn from a happy start to the long weekend?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s win over NJIT

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Penn closed out the nonconference portion of its schedule strong, using a 17-0 run early in the second half to power its way past NJIT for an 80-61 win.

The Quakers (7-6) entered Wednesday as 14.5 point favorites, but certainly didn’t look the part in the early stages after a litany of injuries forced coach Fran McCaffery to tap players normally stuck on the bench. It took a buzzer-beating three from sophomore point guard AJ Levine to get Penn into the halftime locker room with a narrow two-point lead.

McCaffery ratcheted down the substitutions in the second half and Levine put together arguably his best half in a Penn uniform. During that aforementioned 17-0 run, Levine put up a personal 8-0 scoring burst and added two steals and two assists, to boot. The Highlanders (5-10) never trailed by single digits again the rest of the afternoon.

What did Penn fans learn from a happy start to their New Year’s Eve celebration?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball eking out win over Lafayette

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Penn men’s basketball took a circuitous — and fortuitous — path to victory in its first game without Ethan Roberts.

The Quakers (6-4) started hot against Lafayette, building an early 16-point lead. But then the offense stagnated, the Leopards began to hit shots and Penn needed a favorable whistle (or lack thereof) and one last stop to escape with a 74-72 win at the Palestra Monday evening.

The Leopards (3-8) were deprived of a chance to get the game’s final shot while trailing only by one point after the referees incorrectly ruled that a mid-range jumper from forward TJ Power hit the rim. Instead of being hit with a shot clock violation, the Quakers were able to corral the offensive rebound thanks to a winning play from forward Lucas Lueth.

Cam Thrower was fouled with 4.7 seconds on the clock and split a pair of free throws; Lafayette’s Mark Butler was able to get off a desperation attempt at a game-tying layup just before the buzzer sounded, but a good contest from forward Augustus Gerhart helped force the shot offline.

The Quakers may have gotten a little lucky, but you never apologize for winning. Penn fans will have plenty to contemplate about the state of the team heading into its finals break, starting with how …

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s Big 5 Classic loss to Villanova

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PHILADELPHIA — What briefly looked like an opportunity for Penn to snatch a signature win in Fran McCaffery’s first season as head coach spiraled over the course of a half-hour into a nightmare that recreated the worst moments of the Quakers’ last two nightmarish seasons.

Just like last season, Penn played Villanova competitively on Saturday for about 15 minutes of game time. Once again, the game devolved into a blowout. This time, the Wildcats put up 1.36 points per possession in a 90-63 rout that delivered Villanova a Big 5 title.

After junior wing Lucas Lueth tied the score at 27 with an open catch-and-shoot three from the left wing, Villanova (7-1, 3-0 Big 5) went on a 17-2 run to break the game open, which was capped off by two runout layups off turnovers in the final 15 seconds of the first half. The Wildcats were never seriously threatened after that.

The final score, though, was ultimately a secondary concern. The season itself for Penn (5-4, 3-1) is at a crossroads after senior wing Ethan Roberts went down with a scary-looking injury early in the second half. Roberts took an inadvertent high hit while being called for a foul, seized up for a few moments while crumpled in a heap on the ground, and then looked visibly unsteady returning to his feet before walking off the floor under his own power.

McCaffery did not comment on the specific nature of Roberts’ injury but said his player was headed to the hospital.

Roberts’ injury brings back bad memories of the ankle sprain Clark Slajchert suffered in a blowout loss to powerhouse Houston just before New Year’s in 2023. By the time Slajchert returned, Penn was in too deep of a hole to seriously compete for an Ivy Madness spot.

Where do the Quakers go from here?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 33rd Street thrashing of Drexel

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PHILADELPHIA — Penn’s first Big 5 game was thrilling. Its second was a killing.

The Quakers physically dominated Drexel from the opening tip on Friday night and never trailed en route to an 84-68 win over the Dragons at nearby Daskalakis Athletic Center. The victory ensures that Penn (3-2, 2-0 Big 5) will face either Villanova or Temple for the Big 5 title on Dec. 6.

Penn’s stat sheet was littered with green flags. Unfazed by efforts from Drexel (2-4, 0-2) efforts to slow the game down, the Quakers shot 59.4% inside the arc, held the Dragons to 1.01 points per possession, had 15 assists on 27 made baskets and finished with a plus-7 rebounding margin (40-33).

Three-pointers by senior guard Cam Thrower on consecutive possessions — the last of which came while Thrower was shooting on one good leg after rolling his ankle — extended the Quakers’ lead to 17 points midway through the second half and effectively ended the game.

Penn has now strung together back-to-back impressive (and winning) performances as both KenPom and Vegas underdogs. It’s fair to wonder how far ahead of schedule Penn is in its first year under new coach Fran McCaffery after …

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