So was the Penn women’s victory over Columbia a mirage? Was that 11-game winning streak a fluke?
No, but the loss at Princeton reflects the Quakers’ inconsistency.
Simone Sawyer
Padilla leads Penn women past Cornell, 62-54, for Quakers’ eighth straight win
How many times have we written this headline: Padilla leads Penn women past (fill in the blank)?
From deep, slashing through the lane and standing calmly at the free-throw line, the All-Ivy senior guard has so often been the difference. She was again Friday night at the Palestra with 28 points as the Quakers stopped Cornell, 62-54, for their eighth straight win.
It was a match between two teams on the rise this season, both looking down a long road of Ivy games with a chance of making the conference tournament. (The Penn women have qualified for it four times but missed last year’s. Cornell reached the tournament in 2019.) And a lively game showed that both are capable, if uneven.
Padilla leads Penn women in squeaker over Temple
Kayla Padilla capped a milestone day with a left-handed drive through three defenders and led the Penn women to a raucous 62-61 win over Temple Sunday at the Palestra.
The basket with 6.8 seconds left gave Padilla 28 points on the day and 1,013 in her COVID-shortened career. The Quakers (6-5) head into a break for finals and Christmas with a five-game winning streak — sure to hit six, let’s face it, December 30 against Gwynedd Mercy before the start of Ivy play.
Penn women need overtime to beat Bucknell
For the third game in a row, the Penn women were facing a team that beat them last season. And for the third game in a row, they came away with the win.
This time, though, it wasn’t easy. And it required good play up and down the lineup: Four Penn starters scored in double figures, and forward Floor Toonders posted her second double-double in a row.
Penn women shut down Stony Brook, 73-53, after career scoring high from McGurk
This should not have been an easy game for Penn women’s basketball.
This is a challenging year in which the team is trying to regain a spot among the Ivy leaders, projected to repeat in finishing outside the top half of the league. Thursday night’s opponent, Stony Brook, has a winning record and beat the Quakers a year ago.
Sawyer solidifies standout start as Penn women sail past La Salle, 72-59
The Penn women put together their most effective game of the year so far Tuesday night at La Salle, building a comfortable lead early and cruising to a 72-59 win.
Freshman guard Simone Sawyer dispelled any doubts that she’s for real. After just getting her feet wet in the Quakers’ first four games, Sawyer got significant time in two games last week in California and scored 18 points in each. Against La Salle, Sawyer led all scorers with 24 points on 9-for-18 shooting and added seven rebounds and four assists.
Sawyer’s emergence provides silver lining for Penn women in Golden State losses
The Penn women will head home from California dreaming of better days, having dropped two games during their Thanksgiving break but having demonstrated the standout talent of a star freshman.
The trip was a coming-out party for 5-foot-11 guard Simone Sawyer, who is fulfilling her promise as an electric offensive threat. At San Francisco on Monday, Sawyer came off the bench early and started hitting threes, going 6-for-9, to account for her team-leading 18 points in 33 minutes. So coach Mike McLaughlin started her at Southern California, gave her 30 minutes on the floor and got another team-leading 18 points: 6 of 10 from the floor this time, including 4-for-7 from deep, with three assists and four steals.
It’s also good news that the Quakers (1-5) were competitive against two good teams, USF (3-2) and especially USC (5-0). But they’ll have to be better still to reclaim a spot in the top half of the Ivies.
Penn women comeback falls short at Northwestern
The Penn women knew they weren’t traveling to Chicago in mid-November for the weather.
They were at Northwestern, not a national power but a legitimate Big Ten competitor, to test themselves. A win would be a bonus.
The Quakers didn’t get the win. In fact, they never came closer than the zero-zero tie at tipoff on the way to a 63-55 loss. But they made the game close in the fourth quarter — an 11-point run brought them to within three — and they learned some lessons as they try to improve on last year’s fifth-place finish in the Ivies and overall losing record, a rarity for any team that Mike McLaughlin has coached.’
Ivy hoops roundup – A new Floor, opened coaching doors and promotions galore
Before commencing with the rest of the Ivy hoops roundup, a note of sorrow about the passing of James “Booney” Salters, the 1980 Penn grad whose dynamic scoring and passing made him one of the best guards in men’s program history.
Salters died July 7. He was 64.
Penn made the NCAA Tournament in all three of Salters’ three seasons with the Red & Blue. The Penn Athletics and Philadelphia Big 5 Hall of Famer captained the often overlooked 1979-80 Penn team that advanced to the second round of the Big Dance, leading the squad in scoring and sinking the game-winning shot to triumph over Princeton, 50-49, in an Ivy League playoff matchup.