Mike Mahoney – Ivy Hoops Online

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s 90-69 Brown throwdown

February 19, 2023 by Ian Wenik

Penn junior guard Clark Slajchert looked like his confident early-season self in his team’s 90-69 rout of Brown at the Palestra Saturday night. Slajchert notched a team-high 19 points on 8-for-13 field-goal shooting. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn picked a good time to turn in its best performance of the season.

The Quakers (16-11, 8-4 Ivy) pummeled Brown on Saturday at the Palestra, 90-69, and vaulted themselves into a three-way tie for first place in the Ivy League standings.

Though neither Penn nor the league have provided official confirmation, analytics expert Luke Benz said postgame that the Red and Blue have now clinched a trip to the Ivy League tournament.

Usually, this writer uses the top of these articles to describe some pivotal moment where Penn seals either victory or defeat. The pivotal moment on Saturday was the opening tipoff. The Quakers shot out to a quick 9-0 lead and never looked back. It took a string of circus shots by the Bears (13-12, 6-6) in garbage time to trim Penn’s final margin of victory below 30 points.

Just how good were the Quakers on Saturday? BartTorvik.com, a KenPom competitor, assigns every team in Division I a game score of 0-100 for each game it plays. Think of the number as the probability a team will win through its performance on a given night.

Penn finished with a final game score of 97.

It’s all happy Quakeaways today after the Red and Blue pulled off their biggest Ivy weekend sweep in some time:

Report: Harvard men’s basketball poised not to play in ’20-’21, at least one other team considering the same

October 19, 2020October 18, 2020 by Rob Browne

A quiet Saturday on the college basketball front was upended just after three o’clock with Adam Zagoria’s tweet:

Sources: Two Ivy League schools are highly unlikely to play men’s hoops this year and it’s possible the whole league won’t play at all.

“I have a feeling it would be the whole league isn’t going to play,” one Ivy League asst coach.

— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) October 17, 2020

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NCAA allows return of basketball in November, Ivy League will wait to decide

October 2, 2020 by Rob Browne

With most regular seasons and championships for fall sports postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, college athletes and fans have been anxiously awaiting word on the winter sports schedule. They received good news on September 16, when the NCAA Division I Council, chaired by Penn athletic director Grace Calhoun, announced that the men’s and women’s basketball seasons could begin on November 25.

“The new season start date near the Thanksgiving holiday provides the optimal opportunity to successfully launch the basketball season,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said to ESPN. “It is a grand compromise of sorts and a unified approach that focuses on the health and safety of student-athletes competing towards the 2021 Division I basketball championships.”

While basketball enthusiasts around the nation rejoiced with the news that meaningful games would soon be returning to the hardwood, fans of the Ancient Eight were left wondering if the league would move from its July 8 decision that teams could not participate in intercollegiate athletics competition prior to the end of the fall semester.

The short answer is no.

“There are no changes at this time,” responded Ivy League associate executive director, strategic communications & external relations Matt Panto to a request from Ivy Hoops Online. “The decision we have made is it (hold on competition) goes through the (end of the) fall term.”