No. 12 Penn suffers largest collapse in NCAA Tournament history, loses to No. 5 Texas A&M, 63-61

Penn women’s basketball appeared to have its first NCAA Tournament win in program history in the bag, enjoying a 58-37 lead with eight and a half minutes to play.

But in the fourth quarter, Penn’s golden carriage turned jarringly back into a pumpkin and what looked to be a burgeoning Cinderella run worthy of Tinseltown became the largest collapse in NCAA Tournament history.

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Grading the inaugural Ivy League Tournament

After years of debating and voting on the efficacy of an Ivy League Tournament, the first one is in the books.

And it certainly has engendered much discussion amongst the Ivy faithful, given its prominence on the ESPN family of networks this past weekend (ESPNU for the semifinals and ESPN2 for the final).

From a national perspective, not so much, despite the fact that the venerable college basketball writer John Feinstein was one of the media members in attendance for the Saturday session. With that said, here is an attempt to grade the event in different categories:

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No. 12 Penn vs. No. 5 Texas A&M: NCAA Tournament preview

On Monday night, the Penn women’s basketball team (22-7, 13-1 Ivy) was selected to play Texas A&M (21-11, 9-7 SEC) in the first round of the 2017 NCAA Tournament. While the Quakers last two tournament appearances were in College Park, Md., Penn will travel out to Los Angeles for a Saturday 6 p.m. (9 p.m. EST) start.

Many bracketologists had listed Penn as a No. 13 or 14 seed, but the committee noted the team’s experience, conference strength (eighth in the nation), league record, Ivy Tournament win and strong out-of-conference schedule to move them up to a more favorable No. 12 seed. The Aggies, the No. 5 seed in the Bridgeport Regional were the No. 6 seed in the SEC Tournament and made it to the semifinals, before losing 66-50 to Mississippi State (No. 2 in the SEC; No. 6 in the nation). While this is Penn’s fifth overall appearance, it is the Aggies’ 12th straight trip to the Big Dance.

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No. 1 Penn defeats No. 2 Princeton, 57-48, earns third NCAA Tournament berth in four years

No. 1 Penn bested No. 2 Princeton, 57-48, at the Palestra Sunday, handing the Quakers the Ivy League Tournament title and their third NCAA Tournament appearance in the past four seasons.

Penn (21-7, 13-1) used a 14-4 second quarter advantage to create separation between itself and the Tigers (16-12, 9-5), who shot just 18-for-64 (28.1 percent) from the floor.

The Red and Blue were led by Michelle Nwokedi, who posted 15 points and 11 rebounds, and Anna Ross, who notched 17 points. Pacing the Tigers were Bella Alarie, who contributed 11 points and 11 boards, and Leslie Robinson, who registered nine points in 27 minutes of play.

Penn swept its three meetings with Princeton this season and has won its last five matchups with the Tigers.

Penn will hold a NCAA Tournament Selection Monday watch party at the Palestra. Doors to the Palestra will open at 6:15 p.m., and admission will be free to all for the show beginning at 7 p.m.

Penn regular season recap – Ivy women’s tournament preview

Prior to the Ivy League Tournament, Ivy Hoops Online is recapping the seasons of each of the four women’s seeds. Next up is No. 1 seed Penn. We previously covered No. 2 PrincetonNo. 3 Harvard and No. 4 Brown.

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Ivy weekend roundup – Mar. 6, 2017

What a long, strange trip it’s been …

This has been a crazy season for Ivy League basketball, all 16 weeks of it. From Harvard’s starting the season 14 hours away in Shanghai to Penn’s regular season-ending triumph over the Crimson Saturday night, this season has been full of surprises and unusual trends.

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Tweak the Ivy League Tournament tiebreakers

That Penn win on Saturday night … I’m kind of speechless. I tried my best to capture the moment for CSN Philly, but that was just a stunner of an ending. As a Penn alum, that Jackson Donahue shot is something I will not forget for a long time. To be fair, even if I wasn’t a Penn alum, that game was a thriller to attend.

With that being said, I do want to raise one quick issue about the Ivy League Tournament. I will still gripe that it should be just three teams, but if that had been the case going into tonight, we would have been robbed of a pretty fantastic moment.

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Penn basketball has got heart

The sudden resurgence of the Penn Quakers men’s basketball team has been one of the biggest stories of the Ivy League season. After an 0-6 start to conference play, including a four-game stretch where they lost by 12 at the Palestra to (preseason eighth-place) Brown, gave up an early 15-point lead in a defeat at Harvard, were upset by previously winless Dartmouth and got beat by 15 points at home to Princeton, many people (including this writer) were ready to write off the 2016-17 campaign. After the last two weekends, the team has regrouped and is now tied with Columbia for the final spot in the Ivy League Tournament.

Over the last four games, not only has the team played its best basketball of the season, the performances may have been the program’s most dominant in the last decade. The numbers that Penn has put up have been staggering.

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A retraction about Penn’s season

Courtesy of Yale Sports Analytics

Let me begin by offering coach Steve Donahue and the entire Quakers team an unconditional retraction. After their loss to Princeton two short weeks ago, it appeared their inconsistent play would keep them out of the Ivy League Tournament – to which I said, “Well, that ends that.”

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Princeton switches it up on Penn – literally

I attended both of the Penn-Princeton basketball games, each time as a writer for CSN Philly (you can read my recap of game one here and game two here!). While that means I looked for more of a Penn storyline to write about, I was struck after Tuesday’s game by how revealing the blowout 64-49 win was for the Tigers (hence this article).
The first game was an unmitigated disaster in the first half with just two combined assists and a plethora of turnovers, but Princeton emerged with a double-digit lead and soon expanded said lead to 21 points in the early second half. From there, Penn made just about every three-pointer imaginable for a good 10 minutes and tied the game. The Tigers pulled away soon after, but it was an impressive display of shooting for a road team, especially with the much ballyhooed sight lines at Jadwin Gym.

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