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 escaping Rider with 77-73 overtime win

Junior Nick Spinoso notched 19 points on 9-for-17 shooting in Penn’s 77-73 win at Rider Saturday. (Penn Athletics)

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 …

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If there would have been a 2020-21 Ivy hoops season, what would have happened?

Now’s the time of year that an Ivy League hoops slate would be revving up, and since there’s no Ivy hoops action to come this spring, here’s an IHO contributors’ roundtable pondering what might have happened in the 2020-21 Ivy season on the men’s and or women’s sides if there had been one instead of an exodus of much of the league’s top talent via the transfer portal. Behold the one-year Ivy hoops universes we created:

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Cornell fades late, falls in upset bid against Syracuse

The hoopla over Saturday’s Cornell-Syracuse tilt being the Battle of the Boeheims gave way to a good basketball game, with the Big Red clinging to a lead with six minutes to play.

But several bad shots and turnovers down the stretch along with a couple of tough shots falling for the lethal Tyus Battle-Frank Howard combo for Syracuse brought the Big Red down, resulting in a 63-55 Syracuse victory.

and because of that Syracuse was able to escape with a 63-55 victory. Cornell dropped back to 4-4 while Syracuse went to 5-2.

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