Ivy Hoops Online contributor George “Toothless Tiger” Clark shares his takeaways from Saturday’s 77-70 win for Princeton men’s basketball (17-3, 5-2 Ivy) over Penn (9-3, 1-6), including why the Tigers are sophomore guard Xaivian Lee’s team now:
Nick Spinoso
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 77-70 loss at Princeton
Penn men’s basketball put up its best offensive effort in more than a month on Saturday against hated Princeton. It got its best player, senior guard Clark Slajchert, back from injury. It got a dominant performance from junior forward Nick Spinoso.
It still wasn’t enough.
Trailing 62-61 with seven minutes to play, the Quakers gave up a 10-0 run to the Tigers, which was capped by an open Blake Peters three-pointer from the left wing as the shot clock expired with 4:15 to play. When the dust settled, Penn saw itself looking up at Princeton, 77-70, the same final score as the Tigers’ Ivy Madness semifinal victory over the Quakers a season ago.
The result thrilled a sellout crowd for Princeton (17-3, 5-2) at Jadwin Gymnasium and was a painful reminder of just how close Penn (9-13, 1-6) came to glory last March and just what this season could have been before Slajchert suffered a high ankle sprain in December.
Read on for the biggest takeaways from a frustrating night:
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 74-58 loss at Yale
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Penn’s losing streak hit five games after one kill shot too many from Yale Saturday night.
The Red and Blue fell, 74-58, after a 10-0 Bulldogs run over 90 seconds at the start of the second half turned a manageable six-point halftime deficit into a 16-point hole. Penn (9-12, 1-5 Ivy) had already fought-back from a 7-0 game-opening Yale (15-6, 6-0) run to take a lead, then promptly surrendered a 10-0 run to flip the scoreboard back in the Bulldogs’ favor.
A rattled-in three from Niklas Polonowski cut the Penn deficit down to nine points with just over eight minutes to play, but Ivy League Player of the Year candidate Danny Wolf responded with a personal 10-0 scoring barrage to put the game on ice.
If you had told the average fan after the Quakers’ stunning upset over Villanova that Penn would be buried in the Ivy standings before the Super Bowl, they would have told you that you were crazy. But that is the sad reality.
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 70-61 loss at Brown
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.
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 84-81 loss at Columbia
NEW YORK — Penn’s season is on the verge of flatlining after a pitiful defensive performance.
The Quakers squandered a golden chance to gain sole possession of the fourth and final spot in Ivy Madness in a dispiriting 84-81 loss to Columbia.
The coup de grâce came when freshman point guard Sam Brown lost the handle as he sprinted down the floor to try and get a look at a game-tying three before the buzzer sounded. But the Quakers have much more to regret than one possession.
Penn (9-10, 1-3 Ivy) allowed Columbia (10-7, 1-3) to score 1.35 points per possession, according to KenPom, the single-worst showing the Red and Blue have put up on the defensive end against any opponent all season.
The only saving grace is that Dartmouth managed to upset Brown, which creates a five-way logjam for fourth in the Ivy League. But right now, there’s little reason to hope that Penn can emerge out of that pileup. Not after how …
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball escaping Rider with 77-73 overtime win
Penn men’s basketball picked up its first win outside of the friendly confines of the Palestra on Saturday, though it wound up being a much more circuitous path to victory than expected.
The Quakers (8-5) threw away a 13-point second-half lead at Rider in a collapse that brought back bad memories of last year’s Ivy title-deciding loss at Princeton. But they rebounded in overtime to escape Lawrenceville, N.J. with a 77-73 win.
Penn never trailed in the extra session. Junior Nick Spinoso opened the scoring with a putback and-one (he missed the free-throw), while freshman Tyler Perkins gave the Quakers some much-needed breathing room, hitting a banked-in three as the shot clock expired with 90 seconds to play in overtime to extend Penn’s lead to five points.
There’s a lot for Penn fans to be happy about but some reason for concern ahead of a road matchup next Saturday at Associated Press No. 3 Houston, starting with how …
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 81-66 loss to No. 16 Kentucky
PHILADELPHIA — Clark Slajchert took a quick dribble as Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard flew by, freeing the senior up for a wide open three from the wing he routinely hits.
If it went down, it would have pushed Penn to a 49-47 lead over the Associated Press No. 16 Wildcats with 15 minutes to play, completing a comeback from 16 points down.
The shot looked good but came up a little short. It was a microcosm of the afternoon for the Quakers, who gave Kentucky fits for the better part of 30 minutes in what wound up being an 81-66 loss.
Despite having the ball with a chance to tie or go ahead three times in the second half, Penn (6-5) never could quite get over the hump against the Wildcats. A 9-0 Kentucky run around the under-eight media timeout, capped by an open Antonio Reeves three, pushed the Wildcats’ lead from four points to 13 and put the game out of reach.
What could Penn fans take away from a solid showing against one of the most decorated programs in college basketball?
Quakeaways heading into Penn men’s basketball’s showdown with No. 16 Kentucky
After taking a gut-punch loss to La Salle on Saturday, Penn responded by easily brushing aside Division III Fairleigh Dickinson-Florham on Wednesday at the Palestra, 111-57.
As is expected in a game against a Division III team, Penn could give regulars like Nick Spinoso, Tyler Perkins and Clark Slajchert light workloads. Slajchert scored 17 points on eight shots in just 15 minutes of action; he got virtually the entire second half off.
By the end of the evening, 14 different Quakers had scored. Penn also hit a program-record 21 three-pointers.
There aren’t many meaningful Quakeaways one can take away from a Division III tune-up game. But there’s certainly much to mull over ahead of Penn’s big-time game on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center against Associated Press No. 16 Kentucky.
Maybe these can be Palestra Ponderings on a possible path to victory instead.
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 93-92 loss to La Salle
OH MY GOODNESS
KHALIL BRANTLEY BANKS IT IN AT THE BUZZER FOR @LaSalle_MBB
(via @NBCSports)
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) December 3, 2023
For 45 minutes on Saturday, Penn played gorgeous and free-flowing basketball against La Salle.
Penn’s reward for its efforts? A spot on the wrong end of a SportsCenter Top 10 moment.
The Explorers’ Khalil Brantley banked in a three-pointer from nearly halfcourt as the overtime buzzer sounded, sending Penn to a brutal 93-92 loss in the third-place game of the Big 5 Classic at the Wells Fargo Center.
Clark Slajchert hit what should have been a game-winning layup with four seconds left in overtime, which counted as the final two points of his 33-point scoring effort, tying a career high. Penn (5-4, 1-2 Big 5) defended La Salle’s desperation scramble well, with George Smith getting an outstretched arm right in Brantley’s face.
Fate had other plans for Penn.
Zooming out, Quakers fans learned plenty about their team on Saturday. Such as how…
Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 76-61 win over Monmouth
Penn men’s basketball responded to a difficult overtime loss with arguably its best top-to-bottom performance of the season.
The Quakers dominated a Monmouth team that had won its last three games, 76-61, to wrap up the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic round robin with a 2-1 record.
Penn (5-3) took control with an extended 19-4 run midway through the first half over roughly eight minutes of game time that flipped the score from 19-13 in favor of the Hawks to a 32-23 Quakers lead.
A deep Sam Brown three from the right wing off a pretty drive and kick by Tyler Perkins gave Penn a 23-21 lead it would not relinquish for the rest of the day.
It’s all good vibes for Penn on Sunday, led by how …