HANOVER, N.H. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team was forced to scratch and claw all night with a Dartmouth team that entered Friday night's game winless in Ivy League play. The Quakers were able to escape Leede Arena with a 64-61 win thanks to an AJ Brodeur baby hook with 46 seconds left, and solid foul shooting in the final seconds kept the Big Green at bay.
 
Penn won at Dartmouth for the first time since the 2013 season and remains atop the Ivy League standings at 7-0. The Quakers are 17-6 overall. Dartmouth fell to 0-7 in Ivy play and is 4-16 overall.
 
Notes
*Penn has won five in a row, eight of nine, 12 of 14, and is 17-4 since dropping its first two games this season.
 
*Penn is 7-0 in Ivy League play for the first time since 2005-06. That Quakers team went 12-2 in Ivy play and won the league title.
 
*Penn improved to 2-0 in games decided by three points this season, and 5-1 in games decided by five points or less.
 
*Penn is now 15-2 this season, and 32-5 in the Donahue coaching era, when leading at the half.
 
*Penn improved to 15-1 this season when shooting a better field-goal percentage than its opponent (Penn 41.1, Dartmouth 27.9).
 
*Dartmouth's overall FG percentage was the lowest by a Division 1 opponent this season, just two-tenths of a percentage below Navy's 28.1 on November 15.
 
*Sophomore AJ Brodeur had his second double-double of the season and the fifth of his career with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Penn is unbeaten when Brodeur has a double-double in his career.
 
*Brodeur finished 9-of-10 inside the three-point arc. Since halftime of Princeton on Tuesday, he is 17-of-18 on two-point field goals.
 
*Senior Darnell Foreman had his 13th double-figure scoring game this season, with 15 points. He was 5-of-7 from the field, hitting his only three-point attempt, and went 4-of-4 on the foul line.
 
*Sophomore Ryan Betley went 7-of-8 from the foul line late to finish with 12 points, his tenth-straight double-figure scoring game and 20th this season.
 
*Junior Jake Silpe provided a huge boost on Friday night with nine second-half points, all of them on three-point shots in a span of 2:56 midway through the period. He entered the night with four treys for the season.
 
*Penn won despite junior Antonio Woods going scoreless—the third time that has happened this season—and Caleb Wood going for just two points. Caleb entered Friday's game with a five-game streak of double-figure scoring games, while Antonio had done it the previous four contests.
 
How It Happened
Dartmouth was active in the first half, especially the inside pair of Will Emery and Aaryn Rai. The duo combined for 12 points and 13 rebounds—nine of them on the offensive glass—and that played a huge role in the Big Green taking a 15-10 lead and holding it for much of the period. Penn showed life late in the half, however, scoring 11 of the final 13 points (including the last seven) to take a 27-24 lead into the locker room.
 
Brodeur banked a trey to open the second-half scoring, and then Antonio Woods found Max Rothschild for a beautiful feed that made the score 32-24 and forced a Dartmouth timeout. The break worked—the Big Green scored the game's next seven points and 11 of the next 13 to tie the game at 35-35. At that point, Jake Silpe rousted the Penn offense. His first three-pointer of the night with 13:12 left pushed the Red and Blue back in front, 38-35; his second, at the 11:15 mark, snapped a five-point Dartmouth streak to make it 41-40 Quakers; and his third, with 10:16 left, capped an 8-0 run to push Penn ahead, 46-40.
 
Again Dartmouth answered. A Taylor Johnson trey set the Green off on a 7-0 run to regain the lead, and they eventually went ahead 55-51 on a Brendan Barry trey with 4:37 to play.
 
That's when Penn's defense went into lockdown mode. Barry's field goal would be Dartmouth's last until just 11 seconds were left in the game. At the other end, a pair of Ryan Betley free throws and then a Brodeur layup off a Woods feed tied things up with 2:48 to play, and Brodeur capped his night with a baby hook on the right block with 46 seconds left that gave the Quakers a lead they would not relinquish.
 
Barry missed a trey, and Betley was fouled on the rebound and hit both of his free throws to make it 59-55. Johnson missed a jumper, but Brodeur was called for a foul on the rebound and Dartmouth's Chris Knight hit one of two free throws to make it 59-56. The Big Green fouled Betley on the ensuing inbounds, and he hit both to make it 61-56 with 17 seconds left.
 
Lest you think it was over, Johnson drainied a trey from the right corner with Darnell Foreman's hand in his face to make it 61-59, and then it got nervy when Betley missed his first shot before he made the second when he was fouled on the ensuing inbounds. Penn chose to foul Johnson before he could get a three-point shot up to tie, and he hit both to make it a one-point game. Dartmouth fouled Foreman before the ball was inbounded, and he hit both to get the margin back to three points, at 64-61, and then Max Rothschild stole a cross-court pass to seal the win.
 
Up Next
Penn is at Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion tomorrow evening, tipping off with the second-place Crimson (6-1) at 4 p.m. It will be the Quakers' third road game in five days.