Penn women’s basketball waltzes past Gwynedd Mercy

When a good Ivy team plays a Division III team, the question isn’t “Who’s going to win?” It’s “Why bother?”
We’ll answer the first question first, though, in case you were anxious: Penn, 89-34.

Penn and Gwynedd Mercy both entered Sunday’s game with 7-5 records, but the similarities pretty much end there. Gwynedd has a successful D-III program, but it’s a small school, and every one of its players is from the Philly area — Pennsylvania and New Jersey, not even Delaware.

What the two schools have, though, are successful longtime Philly coaches (and former Philly Catholic high school players) who have known each other forever. Mike McLaughlin is in his 15th year at Penn, and before then he had 14 wildly successful years at his D-II alma mater, Holy Family. Keith Mondillo has been Gwynedd’s coach since 1995.

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Penn women romp over Gwynedd Mercy in pre-Ivy warmup

Coaches have plenty of good reasons for scheduling events like the Penn women’s Friday afternoon game — let’s not call it a contest — against Gwynedd Mercy at the Palestra. Drama just isn’t one of them.
Let’s get the basics out of the way: Penn 95, G. Mercy 38. The Quakers put 17 players on the court (no, not all at once), and 16 of them scored. The Penn reserves outscored the Penn starters, who in turn outscored Gwynedd Mercy, which to be fair played well for a Division III team facing a bigger, faster, more talented Division I team.

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Penn women rout St. Francis Brooklyn for fourth straight win

There being no mercy rule in basketball, coaches on the comfortable end of a lead will pull their starters and give untried freshmen real-life college playing time.
When Penn’s Mike McLaughlin did that Thursday night against St. Francis Brooklyn, the game was only three-quarters over — and the Penn reserves made the lead even bigger, closing out a 78-44 romp.
It wasn’t just that St. Francis (1-9) was victim material, though it’s a young team. The Quakers played well enough to beat any team on their schedule, ending the drama early with a 33-point first quarter, knocking down three after three. Penn sank 12 of its 17 first-quarter shots, a stunning 70.6%. The pace of long balls eased up after that, but Penn’s threes — 15 on 37 attempts for the night, or 40.5% — were enough by themselves to outscore everything St. Francis put into the basket.

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Ivy hoops roundup – Olympic exploits, incoming classes and coaching moves

Former Ivy standouts’ Olympic exploits

Olympic action in Tokyo featured an Ivy-on-Ivy matchup Wednesday when Maodo Lo helped lead Germany to a 99-92 victory over Miye Oni’s Nigerian squad in Group B play at Saitama Super Arena. The 2016 Columbia graduate and the Lions men’s third-all-time leading scorer led the Germans with nine assists and added 13 points in 28 minutes.

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