Listen to Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark analyze Princeton men’s basketball’s 70-67 win in Pittsburgh over a KenPom top-85 Duquesne squad, the Tigers’ second win over a team in that echelon away from Jadwin Gym in three games to become one itself:
KenPom
Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 69-61 loss at St. Joseph’s
Penn’s first trip out of the friendly confines of the Palestra ended in disappointment after the Quakers couldn’t quite complete a valiant second-half comeback against Saint Joseph’s in a 69-61 loss at Hagan Arena.
Despite cutting a 19-point Hawks lead to just two points at three instances late in the second half, Penn (2-1, 0-1 Big 5) never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead, thanks to a series of bad breaks and mistakes that were reminiscent of last season’s Ivy Madness loss to Princeton.
The backbreaking sequence came with just under four minutes left to play and the Quakers trailing just 61-59. Saint Joseph’s Kacper Klaczek bricked the front end of a one-and-one, but Penn surrendered an offensive rebound and layup to Rasheer Fleming to extend the Hawks’ lead to four.
On Penn’s next possession, normally-reliable free throw shooter Clark Slajchert missed the front end of a one-and-one. Nick Spinoso corralled the offensive board and looked like he had a clear shot at a layup, but got rejected by Klaczek.
There would be other miscues later on, including a blown fast break opportunity with two minutes to go that could have cut the Hawks’ back lead down to one possession, but that sequence hurt Penn the most.
The loss will give Penn fans plenty to mull over, like how …
Road to redemption: A look ahead to 2023-24 for Penn men’s basketball
March is defined by thin margins.
Penn’s season collapsed with the blow of a referee’s whistle with 90 seconds to go in its Ivy League tournament semifinal against Princeton. If Nick Spinoso’s charge on the Tigers’ Keeshawn Kellman in a one-point game had been ruled a no-call or a flop, would Penn have advanced?
Yale can ask itself a similar question. If August Mahoney — the third-best free throw shooter in the country — converted his one-and-one with 2:18 to go in a three-point game in the Ivy League Tournament final against Princeton, would the Bulldogs have completed their furious second-half rally?
Both those teams could only watch as Princeton went on to go on a magical run to the Sweet 16, the deepest an Ivy League champion has gone in the NCAA Tournament since 2010.
Plenty of Penn fans are probably still bitter, and could you blame them?
But a look at the Quakers’ returning roster indicates that fans’ high expectations for redemption in 2023-24 will be well-justified:
Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s loss at Yale
Penn squandered a golden opportunity to gain position in the race for Ivy Madness on Saturday after another brutal second-half offensive performance led to a 70-63 loss at Yale.
The Quakers (9-11, 2-4 Ivy) lost despite a 27-point performance from superstar Jordan Dingle in which the guard hit six three-pointers. After a nice hook shot from Penn sophomore forward Nick Spinoso tied the game at 49 coming out of the under-12 media timeout in the second half, the Red and Blue promptly committed turnovers on their next seven offensive possessions over nearly four minutes of game time.
Dingle, as great as he was on Saturday, committed turnovers on three of those trips, including an offensive foul.
Despite that brutal stretch, Penn still nabbed a 54-53 lead with roughly 5:50 remaining after guard George Smith hit an open three-pointer off an inside-out feed from center Max Lorca-Lloyd. But Yale (13-6, 3-3) immediately responded with a go-ahead jumper from junior guard August Mahoney.
Mahoney would later stick the dagger in the Red and Blue with roughly 90 seconds left. After Dingle hit a tough three to draw Penn within 62-60, Mahoney responded out of a Bulldogs timeout with an and-one finish over Spinoso which extended the Yale lead to five and effectively ended the game.
The Quakers lost a game which KenPom and Vegas expected them to lose. But the way they got there should leave fans with reason for both consternation and hope.
Three Quakeaways from Penn men falling at Villanova
Playing in front of a national TV audience on CBS Sports Network, Penn delivered a game, albeit losing, performance against Villanova in a 70-59 loss at the Finneran Pavilion on Wednesday night.
A 13-0 run gave Villanova a 10-point lead late in the first half it would not surrender. Despite the best efforts of guard Jordan Dingle — who scored 23 points in the second half and appeared generally unguardable — the Quakers (5-7) never cut their deficit any closer than six points in the second half.
It felt like there were numerous opportunities when the Quakers had a chance to truly make the Wildcats sweat. But Penn just couldn’t quite get the big shot or stop it needed.
Their last, best shot came with about five minutes left in the game. After Villanova’s Caleb Daniels split a pair of free throws, Dingle found senior guard Jonah Charles in the left corner for an open three-pointer in transition. Charles, a three-point specialist, couldn’t convert the look, which would have pulled Penn within five points. The Quakers never seriously threatened after.
It’s obvious that Penn desperately needs guard Clark Slajchert back. The junior, who averages more than 17 points per game, sat out his second consecutive contest with a knee injury. Penn coach Steve Donahue told the Daily Pennsylvanian that Slajchert has a bad bone bruise and is likely out until after Penn’s three-week finals break.
What could Penn fans take away from Wednesday’s tilt?
Three Quakeaways from another devastating Big 5 defeat for Penn men against La Salle
Penn’s matchup with Fran Dunphy-helmed Big 5 foe La Salle on Saturday was a disturbing replay of its Wednesday loss to Saint Joseph’s.
Again, the Quakers let a second half lead slip away against an opponent they were outplaying.
Again, they needed heroics from the incomparable Jordan Dingle to force a tie and reach overtime.
And again, they squandered a late opportunity to tie the game in overtime. This time, freshman Cam Thrower, playing extended minutes for the first time all season, missed a decent three-point look with seven seconds to go in the extra frame which would have tied the contest.
Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s overtime loss to Saint Joseph’s
It’s not often that a team manages to lose a game in which it goes on a 21-2 run, but Penn did just that on Wednesday night, dropping its Big 5 opener to Saint Joseph’s in overtime at the Palestra, 85-80.
The Quakers (5-5) dominated the Hawks for 25 minutes, but that simply wasn’t enough. Saint Joseph’s (3-3) clawed back from a 14-point second half deficit on the back of some ramped-up defensive intensity, using ball-side pressure to disrupt Penn’s dribble handoffs and passing. Couple that with some three-point shooting progression to the mean, and you have a recipe for a comeback.
Despite everything, Penn held leads with 77 seconds left in regulation, 1:55 left in overtime and 1:00 left in overtime. Even after giving up the lead for good, the Quakers had four possessions in the final 56 seconds of overtime with a chance to win or extend the game.
Three open looks from long range did not go down for Jonah Charles or Clark Slajchert, while a fourth chance was wiped away by a debatable charge call on sophomore swingman Eddie Holland III.
What did Penn fans learn from an excruciating defeat?
Three takeaways from Penn men’s overtime win at Lafayette
Penn needed to work overtime to pick up its second win of the season on Tuesday, downing Lafayette 74-68 after an extra five-minute frame.
The end result was probably far closer than the Quakers (2-4) would have liked. Penn had a 10-point lead with five minutes left to play but stalled out on offense at the worst possible time, letting Mike Jordan’s Leopards (1-5) back into the game as the former Penn Ivy Player of the Year sought his first home win as their new coach.
Once in overtime, Jordan Dingle took over for Penn. The junior guard swiped the ball from Lafayette’s CJ Fulton in the first possession of overtime for a breakaway layup, and the Quakers never looked back.
What we learned about Penn men in 92-85 defeat at Missouri
Playing on the road against an SEC opponent for the third consecutive season, Penn went toe-to-toe with Missouri on Friday night at Mizzou Arena in Columbia, but ultimately fell short, 92-85.
The game’s defining sequence came with 5:49 to go in the second half and the Tigers up one, 70-69. Missouri’s best forward, Kobe Brown, got the ball at the left of the free throw circle and unsuccessfully attempted to back down Penn center Max Lorca-Lloyd.
As three Quakers surrounded Brown, the Tigers senior stumbled backwards in the lane. Instead of calling Brown for a travel, the officials signaled for a held ball with the possession arrow favoring Missouri.
The Tigers took advantage of the break, as Nick Honor hit a killer pull-up three-pointer over George Smith in the dying seconds of the shot clock to extend the Missouri lead to four. Penn would get no closer than four points down for the rest of the night.
What did we learn about the Quakers in a solid showing against an opponent ranked 50th in KenPom heading into the game?
Ivy men’s and women’s hoops postseason roundup
Men’s
NCAA Tournament – No. 14 Yale (19-9, 11-3 Ivy) vs. No. 3 Purdue (27-7, 14-6 Big Ten), Fri., 2 p.m. EST (TBS)
Yale’s third NCAA Tournament appearance in five opportunities begins in Milwaukee, where the Bulldogs will take on Purdue in the East Region. Yale was assigned the No. 56 overall seed in the tournament, resulting in this matchup at Fiserv Forum.