LISTEN: Princeton men’s basketball postgame press conference and recap after 61-59 win at Penn

Ivy Hoops Online correspondent George “Toothless Tiger” Clark brings us the audio of the postgame press conference for Princeton after its dramatic 61-59 win at Penn Friday evening:

Clark recaps the action between Princeton (16-6, 5-2 Ivy) and Penn (6-14, 2-5) at the Palestra:

 

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 61-59 loss to Princeton

There have been plenty of excruciating losses in Penn’s 12-game losing streak to arch-rival Princeton, but none have inflicted a pain quite like Friday’s 61-59 loss to the Tigers at the Palestra.

With less than a minute to go, there was Penn (6-14, 2-5 Ivy) in the lead despite being forced to play without star wing Ethan Roberts, who sat out the contest with an undisclosed injury. As has happened in so many of these losses to Princeton (16-6, 5-2), every break possible went the wrong way for the Quakers when it mattered most.

After sophomore guard Sam Brown missed the back-end of a one-and-one which would have extended the Penn lead to 59-56, junior forward Johnnie Walter had the offensive rebound in his hands for a split-second but couldn’t quite corral the ball. The Tigers secured possession and then saw sophomore guard Dalen Davis break free to drain a wide-open three-pointer from the left wing, giving the Tigers a 59-58 advantage with just over 30 seconds remaining.

On the next possession, senior big man Nick Spinoso drew heavy contact as he went up for a layup, hit his first free throw to tie the game, but missed the freebie which would have given Penn the lead. Walter then fouled Princeton’s Jackson Hicke as he put up a midrange jumper with six-tenths of a second to play.

There was zero doubt Hicke would miss. The 6-foot-5 sophomore hit both shots at the line to kick Penn fans back into a familiar pit of misery.

What could Penn fans take away from yet another disheartening loss?

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Yale men’s basketball really is as good as advertised – and maybe better

So much for a nip-and-tuck game with arch-rival Princeton.

And so much for a trap game at Penn in between playing at Princeton and Cornell.

Yale answered those bells emphatically with a 77-70 win at Jadwin Gym and a 90-61 win at The Palestra.

In fairness to Penn, it was a 12-point game with a little under six minutes t0 play and then Yale closed the game out with a 23-6 run. But the game was never in doubt.

If consistency is a virtue, then Yale was more than virtuous. The Bulldogs shot 57% from the filed in both games and held both Princeton and Penn to 34% shooting.

“That’s a really good Yale basketball game,” Yale coach James Jones said. “A really good game from us from start to finish.”

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 88-79 loss to Brown

Penn’s renewed Ivy Madness hopes didn’t last for long.

The Quakers are once again behind the eight-ball after a series of late mistakes against Brown led to a tough-to-accept 88-79 loss at the Palestra.

It fell apart for Penn (6-12, 2-3 Ivy) beginning with 5:39 to play in the game. The Quakers had the ball with a 72-69 lead, having erased a 17-point first-half deficit. The first domino fell when sophomore forward Augie Gerhart was correctly called for an offensive foul after he used his elbow to create space in the low post. On their next trip down the floor, the Bears (10-8, 2-3) hit a jumper to make it a one-point game.

Penn had a chance to extend the lead once again, but the otherwise brilliant junior wing Ethan Roberts missed the front end of a one-and-one. Brown’s Aaron Cooley hit a layup after the miss to give the Bears a lead they would not surrender. The Quakers got a clean fastbreak look for Roberts after the Cooley bucket, but it wouldn’t fall.

For Penn, Friday’s loss could quickly snowball. The Quakers will be heavy underdogs in their next three games against Yale, Princeton and Yale again. That 2-3 Ivy record could turn to 2-6 in the blink of an eye.

What did Penn fans learn from a disappointing evening?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 93-78 win over Columbia

Penn is back in the mix for Ivy Madness after a second consecutive strong shooting performance.

The Quakers rained in 18 threes on 35 attempts in a 93-78 home dismissal of Columbia. Penn (6-11, 2-2 Ivy) is now tied with Dartmouth for fourth place in the league standings, while the Lions (11-6, 0-4) are pretty much toast after a stellar nonconference campaign.

Saturday afternoon’s hero was Sam Brown, who dropped in a career-high 30 points on 12 shots. He became the first Penn player to hit at least eight threes in a game since Jordan Dingle’s 2022 demolition of Harvard in the first Penn game at the Palestra open to fans since COVID hit.

The Quakers won on Saturday thanks to an excellent stretch of complementary basketball early in the second half. They held Columbia without a field goal for 7:38 on the defensive end, while five different Penn players hit threes on the offensive side of the floor. Penn used the dominant stretch to extend a four-point lead into a 19-point advantage inside of 10 minutes to play.

It’s all good vibes again, thanks to how …

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 86-76 loss to Cornell

Penn competed with Ivy title contender Cornell for long stretches in its Ivy home opener on Saturday, but the end result was what was widely expected: an 86-76 loss.

The Quakers (4-11, 0-2 Ivy) outplayed the Big Red (10-5, 2-0) for the first 15 minutes or so, but the whole game flipped once Cornell’s best big man, AK Okereke, took over.

With 3:58 to go in the first half, Penn was clinging onto a 27-25 lead when forward Nick Spinoso attempted a behind-the-back pass out of the post which Okereke easily intercepted. The junior then proceeded to drain a transition three in Spinoso’s face to give Cornell the lead.

On the next trip down the floor, Spinoso attempted a layup over Okereke which got blocked by the rim. Okereke then hit a transition layup which forced Quakers coach Steve Donahue into a timeout and it was all downhill from there, as the Big Red built a lead as big as 20 points in the second half.

What can Penn fans take away from an underwhelming afternoon?

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Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 77-64 win over Maine

PHILADELPHIA — Brilliant performances from Penn’s two best upperclassmen helped the Quakers finally put an end to their four-game losing skid.

Junior wing Ethan Roberts dropped a 23-point, 10-rebound double-double, while senior big man Nick Spinoso seriously flirted with a triple double in a 77-64 win over Maine at the Cathedral Classic Invitational round robin on Saturday.

For the Quakers (3-4), the win over the Black Bears (4-4) was their first victory over a credible Division I opponent all season. Penn’s offense looked crisp for long stretches on Saturday, a welcome change from the early-season clunkiness that has been all too common.

Penn never trailed after the 14:14 mark of the first half but got pushed into a tie at multiple points in the second half. The Quakers drove in the dagger with a 10-0 run that pushed their lead from one point to 11 around the final media timeout of the game. An open Dylan Williams corner three off a swing pass from Roberts pushed Penn’s lead to 68-57 with 3:37 to go and effectively ended the contest.

For the first time in a few weeks, it’s all happy Quakeaways, such as how …

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Penn women’s basketball loses in overtime to UC Irvine, 72-68

The Penn women’s basketball team took another few steps forward Thursday night at the Palestra but came up short in overtime, 72-68, against the University of California at Irvine.
Both sides were tantalizingly close to taking the win in regulation. With a bit more than five minutes left, a three-pointer on a fast break put Irvine up, 60-57. And as the next three minutes ticked away, neither team could score until Penn freshman forward Katie Collins took a pass from Saniah Caldwell and hit a three to tie the game again. A layup for Irvine was quickly followed by another Penn three, this one from freshman Ashna Tambe on a feed from Mataya Gayle. And that one-point Penn lead lasted through an excruciating 90 seconds of missed shots and turnovers for both sides until Irvine’s Hunter Hernandez missed one foul shot but sank the second with five seconds left to send the game into overtime.

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Penn women’s basketball picks itself up after falling to Saint Joseph’s

No matter what sport you’ve been around, you’ve probably heard it said: A W is a W. An ugly win counts just as much in the record books.
But the opposite isn’t necessarily true, and the Penn women’s basketball team recorded a pretty good loss Friday night to an excellent Saint Joseph’s squad, 68-57, at the Palestra.
For context, look back a year and a day to the last time the two teams met: a 77-49 blowout for the Hawks on their way to a 28-win season (and a Big 5 championship). If anything, the Hawks are stronger this year, while the Quakers are trying to compensate for the loss of All-Ivy forward Jordan Obi to graduation and spark plug guard Ese Ogbevire to injury.

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Penn women’s basketball coasts versus Siena to third win

A dominant 27-point performance from Stina Almqvist led the Penn women’s basketball team to a 78-47 trouncing of Siena at the Palestra Wednesday night.
Almqvist, an All-Ivy Second Team selection last season, is second to none so far in her senior year, tied for the league lead in scoring for Penn (3-0) with Princeton’s Madison St. Rose at 19.7 points per game. Against Siena (0-3), Almqvist scored six of Penn’s first eight points. She was as efficient as ever for the night, hitting nine of 14 shots from the field and eight of 10 from the free-throw line, and added nine rebounds, five assists and a pair of steals.

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