ESTERO, Fla. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team used another fast start on Monday night against Northern Illinois, and never allowed the Huskies to get back into the game in taking a 93-80 decision in the first round of the Gulf Coast Showcase.
 
The win was Penn's third in a row and improved the Quakers to 3-2 on the young season. Northern Illinois fell to 2-1.
 
Up Next
The Red and Blue advance to the Showcase semifinal round at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, where they will play Towson (a 76-52 winner over Florida Atlantic) at Germain Arena.
 
Notes
*Not only has Penn won three in a row; the Quakers have not trailed at any point in any of those games, and they have been tied just once (3-3 vs. Penn State Brandywine).

*Penn went over the 90-point mark for the second-straight game; the last time the Quakers did that was the 2002-03 season, when they scored 99 point at USC and followed up with 98 against Monmouth.
 
*Penn shot a staggering 13-of-24 from three-point land, a .542 percentage that is a high in the Steve Donahue coaching era.
 
*Overall, Penn was 35-of-62 on field goals, a .565 percentage which is the second-best in the Donahue era (behind only a .576 performance last year at Brown).
 
*Junior Max Rothschild set career highs with 22 points, 12 rebounds and five assists. He went 8-of-10 from the field.
 
*Sophomore AJ Brodeur broke out with 25 points, a season high, and added five rebounds and four assists. Brodeur was 10-of-16 from the field and knocked down three three-point shots in the game.
 
*Senior Caleb Wood knocked down four treys—his fourth game this season with at least three—and ended the night with 16 for his second double-figure scoring game of the season.
 
*Junior Antonio Woods also knocked down four three-points shots—a career high—and finished Monday night with a season-high 14 points.
 
*Senior Darnell Foreman dished off seven assists, a season high, while sophomore Ryan Betley set a career best with five assists (without a turnover); as a team, the Quakers had 24 assists on their 35 baskets.

*Foreman also tied a career high with eight rebounds.
 
How It Happened
Penn scored the first eight points on Monday night, the four baskets coming from three different players (Rothschild, Woods, Brodeur). The Quakers lead was 15-3 at the first media timeout and extended to as much as 25-6 before the game was seven minutes old. The teams traded points for the rest of the half, and Penn took a 49-32 lead into the locker room at halftime. Brodeur had 16 by the break, while Caleb Wood had 13.
 
NIU shot much better in the second half; after going 11-of-30 (36.7 percent) in the first half, the Huskies were 19-of-32 (59.4 percent) in the second period. Bolstered by one particular stretch that saw Penn go cold from the field, Northern used a 10-2 run to turn a 58-39 Penn lead to a more precarious 11 points (60-49) with a little less than 12 minutes remaining.
 
Penn regrouped, however, as Ryan Betley and Wood sandwiched a pair of three-point baskets around a beautiful Betley feed that led to a Brodeur layup. That made the score 70-54, and the Quakers seems to regain their confidence. NIU got within 11 one more time, with the next five points, but Woods hit a trey and then Rothschild knocked down a pair of free throws after a defensive stop. NIU never got closer than 12 points after that, and that came with less than two minutes remaining.