Steve Donahue

Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s colossal collapse at Princeton

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The plan Penn coach Steve Donahue oversaw to limit reigning Ivy Player of the Year Tosan Evbuomwan’s effectiveness worked Saturday at Princeton, but his team still lost to the Tigers for an eighth straight outing. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

PRINCETON, N.J. — It is hard to envision a more disheartening end to an Ivy League regular season than the collapse Penn orchestrated on Saturday at Jadwin Gymnasium.

The Quakers (17-12, 9-5 Ivy) squandered a 17-point second-half lead before falling in overtime to Princeton (19-8, 10-4), 77-69, handing a share of the Ivy regular season title to their most bitter rivals.

Penn’s undoing was an offensive outage when it mattered most. After sophomore guard George Smith hit a contested layup to extend the Quakers’ edge to 66-58 with 4:16 to go, the team did not make a shot from the field for the remainder of regulation or overtime, a 9:16 stretch.

The Quakers are now locked into the No. 3 seed for next Saturday’s Ivy League Tournament, which will also be held at Jadwin. They will either get a third crack at Princeton or a rubber match against Yale, depending on the result of Yale’s Saturday night road game against Brown.

All the good feelings from Penn’s eight-game winning streak have disappeared in a flash, replaced by a handful of mostly painful Quakeaways:

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men taking care of business in win over Dartmouth

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Senior Lucas Monroe turned in a 13-point, 10-rebound performance to lift Penn past Dartmouth at the Palestra Saturday (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

PHILADELPHIA — Penn is one win away from at least a share of the Ivy League regular season championship after a businesslike 89-79 win over Dartmouth at the Palestra on Senior Day.

The Quakers never trailed after the 16-minute mark of the first half, but there were some dicey moments along the way. At one point, a 9-0 Big Green run midway through the second half cut the visiting team’s deficit to 64-61 and forced Penn coach Steve Donahue into a timeout with 9:19 to play.

Coming out of the break, junior forward Max Martz proved to be Penn’s stopper.

Martz got a mismatch in the post against Dartmouth’s Ryan Cornish, backed down the guard and drained a righty hook to extend the Red and Blue’s lead back to five. He then went on to add two three-pointers from the corner and a second jumper over the next four-plus minutes to hold Dartmouth at bay. Martz finished the afternoon with 18 points and a team-high KenPom offensive rating of 163 points per 100 possessions.

Penn will need a performance like that from Martz next Saturday at Princeton in arguably the team’s biggest regular-season game in five years.

During the long wait, Quakers fans will have plenty to ruminate on, such as how …

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s romp over Hartford

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Jordan Dingle’s shooting was efficient inside and out in a win over Hartford Monday. The junior guard went 4-for-8 from three-point range and 9-for-13 from the field overall. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn’s Monday night matchup against Hartford was a lopsided risk-reward proposition.

A win would mean nothing to the Quakers’ postseason ambitions, while a road loss to the second-worst team in Division I (Hartford entered the game 362nd out of 363 teams in KenPom) would have been one of the worst defeats in program history.

After a bit of a dicey start, Penn turned on the jets and left the Hawks behind, 76-52. The nonconference win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Quakers (10-11).

Penn fell behind early, 19-11, and allowed Hartford (4-17) to start out shooting 8-for-10 from the field. But after coach Steve Donahue made a hockey-style line change, the Quakers’ reserves sparked a 26-9 run over the rest of the first half.

Junior guard Jordan Dingle got a lot more action in this matchup against Hartford than he did in the Quakers’ 75-55 win over the Hawks at the Palestra back in November, in which he played just 18 minutes. Dingle poured in 23 points in 28 minutes on Monday, right in line with his season average.

His performance was one of many happy Quakeaways from the victory.

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s loss at Yale

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Junior guard Jordan Dingle’s 27 points, largely consisting of six three-pointers made on 11 attempts, weren’t enough to avoid a 70-63 defeat at Yale Saturday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn squandered a golden opportunity to gain position in the race for Ivy Madness on Saturday after another brutal second-half offensive performance led to a 70-63 loss at Yale.

The Quakers (9-11, 2-4 Ivy) lost despite a 27-point performance from superstar Jordan Dingle in which the guard hit six three-pointers. After a nice hook shot from Penn sophomore forward Nick Spinoso tied the game at 49 coming out of the under-12 media timeout in the second half, the Red and Blue promptly committed turnovers on their next seven offensive possessions over nearly four minutes of game time.

Dingle, as great as he was on Saturday, committed turnovers on three of those trips, including an offensive foul.

Despite that brutal stretch, Penn still nabbed a 54-53 lead with roughly 5:50 remaining after guard George Smith hit an open three-pointer off an inside-out feed from center Max Lorca-Lloyd. But Yale (13-6, 3-3) immediately responded with a go-ahead jumper from junior guard August Mahoney.

Mahoney would later stick the dagger in the Red and Blue with roughly 90 seconds left. After Dingle hit a tough three to draw Penn within 62-60, Mahoney responded out of a Bulldogs timeout with an and-one finish over Spinoso which extended the Yale lead to five and effectively ended the game.

The Quakers lost a game which KenPom and Vegas expected them to lose. But the way they got there should leave fans with reason for both consternation and hope.

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s fast fade-out in loss to Princeton

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Penn men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue has work to do to help turn around a season starting to head south after a third loss in four games and seventh straight loss to Princeton Monday. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

PHILADELPHIA — Penn’s season looks like it’s on the verge of spinning out of control after the Quakers delivered a dispiriting offensive performance en route to a 72-60 home defeat against archrival Princeton.

If you had told the average Quakers fan prior to the game that Penn (9-10, 2-3 Ivy) would hold Princeton (13-5, 4-1) to 40.4% shooting from the field, four made three-pointers on 25 attempts and just six assists on 23 made baskets, they would have told you that the Red and Blue would likely win by double digits.

Instead, the Quakers one-upped the Tigers’ offensive futility. Penn failed to make a single three-pointer on Monday, and, in fact, has not hit a single shot from long distance since Jordan Dingle’s four-point play opportunity with 3:29 to go in the first half of Penn’s Saturday loss to Dartmouth.

The backbreaking sequence for the Quakers came with roughly 10:38 to go in the second half and Princeton up two, 40-38. The Tigers’ Ryan Langborg freed himself from Penn’s Andrew Laczkowski for a decent look at a three and drained the shot. Penn forward Nick Spinoso was simultaneously called for a foul away from the ball.

Princeton was in the bonus, so standout freshman Caden Pierce calmly drained both ends of a one-and-one to complete the five-point possession. The Tigers’ lead was just seven points, 45-38, but it may as well have been 20, given Penn’s offensive struggles.

Most of the Quakeaways from Monday are ugly, so look away if you must:

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s 84-55 blowout win at Columbia

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Junior guard Jordan Dingle poured 33 points on 11-for-17 shooting in Penn’s road rout of Columbia Saturday night. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

NEW YORK — Penn bounced back from its loss to Cornell in pretty much the best way possible: by delivering an absolute beatdown of an overmatched opponent. The Quakers hammered Columbia, 84-55, on the back of a 65.2% shooting night from three-point range.

The bulk of that outside shooting came from junior guard Jordan Dingle. The overwhelming favorite for Ivy Player of the Year hit seven of his nine attempts from distance, raising his season three-point shooting percentage from 32% to 35.8% in the process.

Despite committing 17 turnovers, Penn’s offense was able to bury the Lions thanks to a series of opportunistic offensive outbursts. The Quakers generated runs of 15-0, 16-2 and 14-2 over the course of the evening.

Penn also delivered a season-best performance on the defensive end, holding Columbia to just .77 points per possession, according to KenPom.

It all added up to an easy, relatively stress-free win — and plenty of happy Quakeaways, to boot:

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s 88-69 loss at Cornell

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Penn men’s coach Steve Donahue couldn’t find a lineup that worked as Cornell pulled away with authority in the final 10 minutes of his team’s loss at Newman Arena Friday night. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn learned the hard way just how far Cornell and coach Brian Earl have come on Friday night, dropping an 88-69 decision to the Big Red in Ithaca, N.Y.

The Quakers were disrupted by Cornell’s uptempo offense and ultra-aggressive defense from the opening tip, even though they matched the Big Red for roughly 30 minutes.

The game flipped when Cornell delivered an emphatic counterpunch to a shot which Penn fans likely thought could have carried the team to victory. Junior guard Clark Slajchert hit a tough three from the left wing through contact to give the Quakers a 56-55 lead with 11:51 to play — and arguably should have had an opportunity for a four-point play.

No matter. On the very next possession, the Big Red’s Greg Dolan drove through the lane, hit a layup and drew a foul on Penn forward Max Martz in the process. The foul, Martz’s fourth, forced Penn coach Steve Donahue to pull the man who had been his most efficient player thus far from the game.

By the time Martz returned to the floor, it was too late. Cornell used the and-one to ignite a game-deciding 17-4 run.

As Quakers fans reflect on Friday’s contest, they’ll find themselves haunted by some ghosts from the team’s past, which are detailed below:

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Three Quakeaways from Penn men’s 76-68 win at Brown

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Junior guard Clark Slajchert exploded for 31 points on 11-for-18 shooting in Penn’s 76-68 win at Brown Monday evening. (Photo by Erica Denhoff)

Penn started off Ivy League play on the right foot Monday, gritting out a 76-68 road win over Brown in Providence.

After a sluggish offensive start, the Quakers (8-7, 1-0 Ivy) leaned on their elite backcourt duo of juniors Clark Slajchert and Jordan Dingle, who combined to score 51 points.

Dingle put the Bears (7-7, 0-1) to bed with about 80 seconds left after he collected a lob pass from forward Nick Spinoso through a triple team and finished through contact at the rim to push Penn’s lead to 70-63. Though Dingle didn’t convert his and-one free throw opportunity, the damage had been done.

Here are the biggest Quakeaways from Penn’s fourth consecutive victory over Brown:

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Ivy men’s hoops observations as league play approaches

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With conference play in the 2022-23 Ivy League men’s basketball season fast approaching, let’s take a look back at the nonconference results for each team and examine each program – listed by season winning percentage:

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