Malik Mack

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 105-83 loss to Princeton

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Penn’s Ivy campaign came to a miserable end on Saturday night as the Quakers made history for all the wrong reasons.

The Quakers turned in a defensive no-show against rival Princeton in a 105-83 loss at the Palestra. The 100-piece was the first time either Penn (11-18, 3-11 Ivy) or Princeton (24-3, 12-2) scored 100 points in a rivalry that has spanned 250 games (shoutout to Ivy Hoops Online contributor Steven Tydings for the lookup).

Princeton sealed an outright Ivy League title and kept its hopes of attaining an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament alive with the breezy victory. The Tigers never trailed on Saturday night and shot an absurd 17-for-27 from three-point range, good for a 63% clip. Princeton has now beaten Penn 11 times in a row.

After a nonconference campaign that inspired reason for genuine hope, Penn wound up posting its worst Ivy season since 1956-57. That iteration of the Red and Blue also went 3-11 in league play.

What could Penn fans take away from a moribund evening?

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After historic unionization vote, Dartmouth men’s basketball sweeps its final day of the 2023-24 season

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Despite a 6-21 record, Dartmouth men’s basketball will go down as one of the most impactful in NCAA history thanks to its unionization efforts. (Dartmouth Athletics)

The lead-up to the season finale for the Dartmouth men’s basketball team was like no other in program history.

In fact, it was like no other in NCAA history.

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“We’re a hard-playing team”: How Brown men’s basketball claimed the final Ivy League Tournament slot

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Three times in the Ivy Tournament era, Mike Martin’s Brown teams have tied for fourth place only to lose out on a postseason bid due to being on the wrong side of the league’s tiebreakers. After a thrilling overtime victory over Harvard on Friday night and a blowout win against Dartmouth on Saturday, the Bears earned its first trip to Ivy Madness.

Brown (11-17, 7-6 Ivy) seemed out of the race for the tournament after starting off league play at 2-6 and hosting only two more games in the Pizzitola Sports Center. Three weeks later, Bruno, winners of five straight, is a serious threat to challenge Princeton, Yale and Cornell for the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

After the weekend, Harvard (14-12, 5-8), which also lost to Yale on Saturday, missed out on its third straight conference tournament and can do no better than fifth place. Dartmouth (5-21, 1-12), which has never made it to Ivy Madness and was defeated by the Bulldogs on Friday, is locked into last place and plans on holding its historic unionization vote on Tuesday before welcoming the Crimson in the Tuesday season finale for both teams.

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Yale men’s basketball bests Harvard, 80-60

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Yale men’s basketball picked the right time of the year to peak.

The Bulldogs thrashed Harvard, 80-60, at John J. Lee Amphitheater Saturday night to move to persist in sharing the Ivy League’s top slot with Princeton.

“We had as good a start to finish as we have had in a long time,” coach James Jones said.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 74-70 loss to Harvard

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The dagger is officially in Penn’s season after the Quakers took a difficult-to-swallow road defeat at Harvard, 74-70.

Penn (10-16, 2-9 Ivy) completed a comeback from 17 points down in the second half after Clark Slajchert drained an open three from the right wing off an offensive rebound to tie the game at 62 with 5:45 to play.

But the Quakers were ultimately undone by a terrible break on a 50/50 ball when it mattered most.

With Penn down two points and the clock ticking below 3:45 to play, junior Nick Spinoso poked the ball free from Harvard’s Louis Lesmond in the post. Freshman Sam Brown dove but couldn’t come up with the loose ball. Instead, Harvard’s Malik Mack was able to recover it and swing the ball to Lesmond for an open corner three out of the scramble. Lesmond drained the shot to put the Crimson (14-10, 5-6) up two possessions.

Truth be told, Penn’s season effectively ended well before Saturday. That’s what happens when you lose eight games in a row during a 14-game conference season.

All that’s left to play for now is pride and future development. There’s plenty to rue about Saturday, starting with how …

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LISTEN: Princeton men’s basketball handles Harvard, 66-53

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Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark recaps a 66-53 win for Princeton (20-3, 8-2 Ivy) at Harvard (13-10, 4-6) Friday night that allowed the Tigers to keep a game behind Cornell in the Ivy League standings:

Harvard men’s basketball escapes Columbia, 80-75, to sweep season series

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Following a Friday night loss to Cornell, the dreaded bus trip from Ithaca to Morningside Heights and a nine-point deficit midway through the second half of Saturday night’s contest, Harvard men’s basketball stormed back to defeat Columbia by five, 80-75, and left Levien Gymnasium tied with the Lions in league play.

Both teams are in fourth place in the Ivy League, but the Crimson (13-9, 4-5 Ivy) swept the season series and presently hold the fourth seed for the Ivy League Tournament with only five games to go.

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Cornell men’s basketball pulls away from Harvard in the second half to remain unbeaten in Ivy League play

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After hard-fought wins for both teams on Friday night, Cornell men’s basketball looked to use its depth, while Harvard hoped its physical defense would be the difference in the second night of the opening weekend of back-to-back contests.

While the two teams slugged it out in the first half, the Big Red’s relentless roster wore down the Crimson over the final 20 minutes and came away with an 89-76 win in front of an Alumni Night crowd that featured NCAA president and Ivy Basketball Legend Charlie Baker.

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Columbia/Harvard Friday night matchups: Crimson men and Lions women prevail

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On the first night of the Ivy League’s opening back-to-back weekend, the Columbia women hosted Harvard, while the Crimson men welcomed the Lions.

When the dust cleared on Friday evening, both home teams held serve in competitive contests.

With the wins, the Lions women (14-5, 5-1 Ivy) claimed sole possession of second place and the Crimson men (11-7. 2-3) sat in a fourth-place tie with Brown.

The Harvard (11-8, 4-2) women dropped to a third-place tie with Brown, while the Lions (10-8, 1-4) men fell into a sixth-place tie with Dartmouth and Penn.

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 70-61 loss at Brown

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Penn’s season looks all but over after a late offensive outage spelled doom in Providence, R.I.

The Quakers had a chance to draw with one point of Brown with 5:30 to play after junior forward Nick Spinoso hit an and-one layup over the Bears’ Malachi Ndur. Spinoso line-drive bricked the free-throw and the score remained 56-54 in favor of the Bears.

Penn didn’t make another shot from the field until just 45 seconds remained. At that point, the lead for the Bears had swelled to 11 points in what wound up being a 70-61 win for Brown (6-14, 2-3 Ivy).

It’s hard to see the Quakers responding on the second day of a road back-to-back at Yale, the current league co-leader. Penn (9-11, 1-4) may remain mathematically alive to reach Ivy Madness for a few weeks longer, but the hole this team has dug for itself may be too deep to overcome.

There aren’t too many happy Quakeaways for fans to hold onto as they pick through the wreckage of a season that started with such promise.

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