WICHITA, Kan. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team gave top-seeded Kansas a scare through the first 13 minutes of Thursday's NCAA Tournament first-round game at INTRUST Bank Arena, and the Quakers trailed by just four points with 11 minutes left in the second half, but the Jayhawks made the plays after that and were able to pull away for a 76-60 win.

With the loss, the Red and Blue's season came to a close at 24-9 overall, the most wins by the program since 2001-02. Kansas improved to 28-7 and moved on to a second-round matchup with Seton Hall on Saturday after the Pirates defeated N.C. State, 94-83.

Notes
*Penn fell to 13-26 all-time in the NCAA Tournament, and is now 0-2 as a No. 16 seed. This was the Quakers' 24th appearance in March Madness.

*Penn is now 0-4 all-time against Kansas and 4-10 against current Big 12 Conference programs (four of those losses coming in the NCAA Tournament).

*Penn hit 11 three-point shots, the 13th time the Quakers reached double figures in that category.

*For the eighth time this season, Penn took more three-point shots (29) than two-point shots (27).

*Penn shot 39.3 percent from the field, its worst performance in that category since Yale on February 3 (37.7 percent).

*Sophomore AJ Brodeur nearly had his third straight double-double, finishing with 14 points and grabbing nine rebounds. It was his sixth straight game scoring in double digits, and his 22nd such game this season. He also had three assists.

*Senior Caleb Wood also had 14 points, knocking down four three-pointers, for his 17th double-digit scoring game this season and his fifth with at least four treys.

*Playing his final game wearing the Red and Blue, Darnell Foreman scored 10 points for his sixth consecutive double-digit scoring game. He also had six boards and three assists.

*Junior Antonio Woods also had 10 points, his first double-digit game since February 6 at Princeton.

*Sophomore Ryan Betley finished the day with eight points and seven rebounds.

*As a team, Penn played 33 games which tied a program record for a season (also 2011-12) and set single-season records for points (2,506) and three-point field goals (291).

*Betley finished the season with 84 treys, good for fourth on Penn's single-season list behind Lamar Plummer (96 in 2000-01) and Matt Maloney (91 in 1992-93, 87 in 1994-95).

*Brodeur finished the season with 41 blocked shots, tied for eighth on Penn's single-season list with Ugonna Onyekwe (41 in 2001-02). Through two seasons, Brodeur has 107 blocked shots which is fifth on the Quakers' all-time list.

How it happened
Penn controlled most of the play in the first half, with the lead reaching double digits at 21-11 with 8:01 to play before halftime. Antonio Woods' driving layup capped the 14-4 run for the Quakers over eight minutes. Betley scored all eight of his points for the game during the run.

The Jayhawks finished the opening stanza on a 22-5 run to take a 33-26 lead into the locker rooms. Devonte Graham had 15 of his game-high 29 points during the final eight minutes to put the Big 12 champions on his back and bring the partisan INTRUST Bank Arena crowd to its feet.

In the second half, Penn cut the Kansas lead to four on two occasions just minutes after intermission. The Jayhawks stretched the lead to 50-37 with 14:34 before two Wood three's sparked an 11-2 Quaker spurt that cut the deficit to four with 11:23 to play.

Unfortunately for the Penn faithful that made the trip to Wichita and for those watching on television across the world, it was as close as the Quakers would get. Kansas responded with a 7-0 run that extended the lead back to double figures and it remained that way for the rest of the contest.

Penn connected on 11 three's but was hurt by 5-for-14 shooting from the charity stripe. The Red and Blue had 16 assists on 22 field goals and committed 11 turnovers.

What they are saying
"Give Kansas a ton of credit. I thought they played a terrific game. I couldn't be more proud of my guys and how we played and competed and did everything I would hope. It was a great college basketball game, in particular, for about 35 minutes, and they finished us off." – Steve Donahue, head coach, Penn

"We were just trying to realize that as a good team as they are to take that punch that they're going to give us, you know they're going to go on a run inevitably. What we were focusing on is how we were going to handle that, how we were going to respond to it, taking that and making it as short as possible, getting our stops and then getting back into our flow. Running our game, our speed, was I think crucial to getting us back into the game in the second half. But eventually they kept making runs and we kept faltering." – AJ Brodeur

"Penn is an incredible place to coach basketball. I think we have a great future. We have a lot of young players that are a big part of this. I love our young group and their mentality, and I would hope that we get back here, but there's no guarantees. We're going to start working pretty quickly on trying to figure out how to get better. Our league is really good. And we're really young. I think we're a good representation of the league, but by no means are we the only team that feels that they're going to have a great future ahead of them." – Steve Donahue

"We're obviously very, very happy we won, but it wasn't a 16-point game. It was much closer than that. We got off to such a bad start and they were so much better than us early. We were forcing it. We were only down I think 21-11. We felt like we could have been down, you know, 12 or 15 easily at that point." – Bill Self, head coach, Kansas

"I think they were better than the 16 seed. And the way they played, it's hard to guard because they backdoor you and you're so worried about not getting back-doored and they pop back in and they shoot the ball so fast. They run a good offense, and they got a lot of good, skilled players that know how to move and run the ball and just play real fundamental." – Devonte' Graham, Kansas
 

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