Tyler Perkins

Quakeaway from Penn men’s basketball’s 93-49 loss at Villanova

by

Disheartening. Discouraging. Disgusting.

Whatever negative adjective you’d want to throw out would probably apply to how Penn performed in a 93-49 loss at Villanova on Tuesday night.

That 44-point margin of defeat is the worst loss Penn has ever suffered against the Wildcats in a series that spans 71 games and dates back to 1910. The prior record-holder was the 43-point loss Penn took to Villanova in the 1971 Elite Eight, which ruined an undefeated season for the Quakers and is widely considered the worst defeat in program history.

This team is galaxies away from that 1970-71 squad. The Quakers actually played pretty well offensively in the early stages on Tuesday, using good ball movement and better three-point shooting to draw even with the Wildcats at the under-eight media timeout in the first half.

What happened from there was nothing short of a collapse. Penn went roughly 14 minutes of game time without scoring a field goal as Villanova used red-hot outside shooting to put together a killer 30-3 run.

As for Tyler Perkins, who got his first chance on Tuesday to face his former Penn teammates after his offseason transfer up the Main Line to ‘Nova? The sophomore guard scored seven points before the game’s first media timeout and finished a rebound shy of a double-double.

There is only one Quakeaway that merits mentioning after Tuesday’s humiliation:

Read more

How are the Ivy non-grad transfers doing?

by

With the season two weeks old, here’s a first check on the 2023-24 Ivy stars who transferred prior to their graduation. This year, the student-athletes are all from the men’s side, but growing amounts of NIL money, more relaxed transfer rules and the lack of scholarships in the Ancient Eight should eventually (sadly) expand this list to the women’s division in the near future.

Over the opening few weeks, Kalu Anya, Malik Mack and Danny Wolf have continued their strong play from last year, while Chisom Okpara and Tyler Perkins are seeing reduced roles with their new teams.

We’ll take another look in a few weeks to see how everyone’s doing:

Read more

Q&A with Penn men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue, part 2

by
(Steve Donahue X page)

Media expectations for Penn basketball are the lowest they’ve been since coach Steve Donahue’s first season on campus in 2015. The Quakers were tabbed to finish seventh in the Ivy League, ahead of only Dartmouth. 

Predictive analytics websites have a slightly rosier outlook and project Penn to be in the mix for a third or fourth-place finish, which would be good enough to earn a trip to Ivy Madness in Providence.

With the season just three weeks away, Ivy Hoops Online spoke with Donahue to take a deep dive into how the Quakers will operate with seven new players on the roster.

Both questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length:

Check out part 1 of the conversation here. 

Read more

Princeton men picked as preseason Ivy favorites in media poll

by

Princeton, last year’s undisputed regular season champions, were picked to take home the 2025 Ivy title in the preseason media poll released on Tuesday.

Led by junior forward Caden Pierce, the 2024 Player of the Year, and first team All-Ivy junior guard Xaivian Lee, Mitch Henderson’s Tigers picked up 15 of 16 first place votes and 127 of a maximum 128 points.

Read more

Five things I think I think about Penn men’s basketball, post-Ethan Roberts commitment

by

The great Peter King, dean of football writers in America, retired earlier this year. I would put King — the longtime Sports Illustrated columnist and reporter — right up there with Lawrence Taylor, my father and Steve Sabol among the people who helped spark my lifelong love affair (obsession?) with sports.

In honor of King, I have a few more thoughts than usual on Penn’s position in the Ivy League landscape — and college basketball at large — after it picked up a high-upside transfer in the form of ex-Drake guard Ethan Roberts, a sophomore, last week.

Read more

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball adding Mercer transfer Michael Zanoni

by
Michael Zanoni (Mercer Athletics)

Penn made its first transfer portal addition of the 2024 offseason when ex-Mercer guard Michael Zanoni revealed Monday that he had committed to the Quakers.

Zanoni, a sophomore, missed most of the 2023-24 season with a fractured foot and received a medical redshirt. He entered the portal with three years of eligibility remaining. In his 2022-23 freshman campaign, Zanoni appeared in all 33 of the Bears’ games, making 13 starts. He shot 35.6% from deep for the season on 104 attempts, averaging 6.2 points per game.

There’s a lot to like about Zanoni’s game and the broader implications of his decision to come to Penn, such as how …

Read more

Danny Wolf enters transfer portal after standout season for Yale men’s basketball

by
Danny Wolf averaged 14.1 points and 9.7 rebounds as a sophomore forward in 2023-24 before entering the transfer portal. (Yale Athletics)

Danny Wolf, a 2023-24 First-Team All-Ivy selection as a sophomore forward for Yale, has become the latest top-shelf Ivy talent to enter the transfer portal, extending a string of standouts leaving or poised to leave the Ivy League.

Read more

Q&A with Yale men’s basketball coach James Jones

by
James Jones led Yale men’s basketball to its second ever NCAA Tournament win last week. (James Jones’s Twitter page)

Ivy Hoops Online caught up with Yale coach James Jones Wednesday following his return from Spokane, Wash., where his team notched the second ever NCAA Tournament win in program history last week with a triumph over Auburn before falling to San Diego State in the Round of 32:

Read more

Quakeaways from Tyler Perkins entering transfer portal to leave Penn men’s basketball

by
New transfer portal occupant Tyler Perkins averaged 13.7 points and 5.3 rebounds in 29.8 minutes per game as a freshman in 2023-24. (Penn Athletics)

Penn’s offseason got off to a depressing start on Monday when standout freshman guard Tyler Perkins entered the transfer portal.

With the caveat that I possess no inside knowledge, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Georgetown fans who have been salivating over the Lorton, Va. native since the summer of 2023 finally got their wish.

The Quakers have now lost their best returning player for two consecutive offseasons. At least Perkins ripped the band-aid off early, hopping into the portal on the first day of its 45-day window. Jordan Dingle entered the portal more than a month later in 2023.

Much of this analysis could be rendered obsolete by the time the portal closes, but here’s a first stab at what Perkins’ departure means in the grand scheme of things for both the Quakers and Ivy League at large:

Read more

Quakeaways from Penn men’s basketball’s 105-83 loss to Princeton

by

Penn’s Ivy campaign came to a miserable end on Saturday night as the Quakers made history for all the wrong reasons.

The Quakers turned in a defensive no-show against rival Princeton in a 105-83 loss at the Palestra. The 100-piece was the first time either Penn (11-18, 3-11 Ivy) or Princeton (24-3, 12-2) scored 100 points in a rivalry that has spanned 250 games (shoutout to Ivy Hoops Online contributor Steven Tydings for the lookup).

Princeton sealed an outright Ivy League title and kept its hopes of attaining an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament alive with the breezy victory. The Tigers never trailed on Saturday night and shot an absurd 17-for-27 from three-point range, good for a 63% clip. Princeton has now beaten Penn 11 times in a row.

After a nonconference campaign that inspired reason for genuine hope, Penn wound up posting its worst Ivy season since 1956-57. That iteration of the Red and Blue also went 3-11 in league play.

What could Penn fans take away from a moribund evening?

Read more