Dorian Glogovac

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s season-opening loss at No. 3 Illinois

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Penn men’s basketball’s rematch with national title contender No. 3 Illinois went about as well as round one.

The Quakers (0-1) started off their Ivy defense with a 112-70 defenestration at the hands of the Fighting Illini (2-0).

For the game’s first 10 minutes, Penn looked like a team ready and willing to compete in a difficult true road environment. The Quakers briefly led in the opening minutes and were down just one point, 23-22, after freshman guard Ethan Lin drilled a three-pointer from the left corner.

Illinois — which might be the best offensive team in all of college basketball — responded with an immediate 22-3 killshot run over the course of five minutes which effectively ended the competitive portion of the contest. The visitors missed 10 straight shots from the field during the backbreaking run.

The Fighting Illini added runs of 10-0 and 18-2 in the second half to balloon the final score even further. The Quakers were extremely fortunate to see their KenPom ranking drop only five slots to 134th in Division I after the beatdown.

It was obvious the second this game was scheduled that winning was going to be an almost-impossible task for Penn. What lessons did fans learn from a rough opening night?

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Burning questions for Penn men’s basketball, season opener edition

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One of the most anticipated Penn men’s basketball seasons in recent memory will begin where it all ended back in March, with a matchup against an Illinois team with Final Four aspirations.

Once again, Penn will probably be a 20-plus-point Vegas underdog against a team KenPom has ranked as the fourth-best in the country. And this time around, the Quakers will have to face the Fighting Illini on their home floor in Champaign.

But even if the Red and Blue do get waxed at the State Farm Center on Thursday, it won’t come with the same sense of crushing finality which accompanied last season’s 105-70 loss in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Instead, it’ll be the first data point fans can evaluate as Penn starts down a path which could — if things break right — lead to a spot inside the KenPom top 100, an Ivy League title defense on its home floor and a realistic shot at the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory since 1994.

Below are a few of the biggest questions fans will receive answers to as the 2026-27 season progresses:

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Ivy League men’s basketball preview: Preseason poll and Media Day

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Picking up where it left off in mid-March, tournament champion Penn was selected first in the Ivy League men’s basketball preseason poll that was released on Oct. 13.

Penn received 11 first-place votes from the 21-person media panel and a total of 157 points.

Harvard, which finished the regular season in second place, earned the second slot on the 2026-27 list on the strength of seven first-place votes and 146 overall points.

Despite losing its entire starting lineup, two-time regular season champion Yale was selected for third with two first-place votes and 133 points.

Princeton, which returns 16 of 17 players from last year’s fifth-place edition, secured the final space in the upper division with 99 points and a single first-place vote.

Five straight appearances in Ivy Madness wasn’t good enough for the panel to keep Cornell in the top half, and the Big Red ended up in fifth place with 82 points.

The sixth, seventh and eighth spots went to Columbia (69 points), Brown (42) and Dartmouth (30), respectively.

Following the release of the poll, the Ivy League and the Field of 68 partnered for the conference’s annual Media Day. For the second straight season, Jeff Goodman and Rob Dauster moderated the conversation with all the teams and the league’s executive director.

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