NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team was within range late Saturday night at Yale, but the Bulldogs hit six straight shots over a 2:52 span—three of them from beyond the arc—to pull away from the Quakers and win 78-65.
 
Antonio Woods hit a three-pointer with 6:09 left that got Penn within 62-59, and the Quakers had a few chances to get within one or even tie after that. However, a game that had frenetic moments had one with 4:25 left, Yale getting out in transition and Trey Phills finishing an and-1 layup and the foul shot. Before you knew it, the Bulldogs had hit a pair of treys and in the space of a minute the margin had gone from three to 12.
 
Yale's win, combined with losses by both Princeton (at Brown) and Harvard (home to Cornell), left the Bulldogs atop the Ivy standings at the end of the night at 5-1. The Tigers, Crimson and Big Red are all a game behind, at 4-2. Penn fell to 14-8 overall and is now 2-4 in Ivy play.
 
Notes
*Penn lost despite committing just seven turnovers, tied for a season low (also seven against Saint Joseph's on January 26).
 
*Penn tied a season high by taking 74 shots on Saturday but made just 26 for a 35.1 percentage; the Quakers have shot 35.4 percent from the field in their eight losses, 52.1 percent in their 14 wins.
 
*Penn took just seven foul shots on Saturday, a season low, and tied for a low in the Donahue era with four makes.
 
*Junior Devon Goodman scored 16 points, giving him 37 for the weekend and 68 over Penn's four-game Ivy road junket.
 
*Senior Antonio Woods also had 16 points, his best offensive performance since scoring 19 against Monmouth on December 31.
 
*Woods also had three steals, tied for a career high originally set last year at, you guessed it, Yale.
 
*Junior AJ Brodeur finished with 14 points, his 16th straight game in double figures.
 
*Brodeur also had seven assists, tying a career high set last year at Dayton.
 
*Senior Max Rothschild had eight points, giving him 26 in Penn's last three games, and was one shy of a season high with six rebounds.
 
How It Happened
The game took a slow start, as both teams combined for just six buckets from the field in the first five minutes of play with Yale leading 8-7. Penn rode a 9-2 run, taking the lead on a Woods three, and extending the lead to four after a Goodman layup.
 
Yale went on a 10-2 run to take a four-point lead, but the Quakers regained the lead after a pair of Devon Goodman treys made it 24-22.
 
Penn then went on a run of 5:46 without a basket from the field, broken by an Antonio Woods layup and a freebie from the line to cut the deficit to four with just over a minute left in the half. Yale hit one from the line and entered the half up 34-29.
 
The Red and Blue got back to work early in the second half, as Woods swiped the ball on one end and Brodeur got it done underneath on the other to make it a one-possession game. However, Yale hit two straight buckets to take an eight-point lead.
 
The Bulldogs extended out to a nine-point lead, at 47-38, coming out of the first media timeout of the second half. Penn cut it to five after a pair of putbacks by Max Rothschild.
 
The Quakers cut it to a four-point deficit twice—first on a Wang three, then a Goodman layup—but Yale continued to respond, stifling any Penn momentum.
 
Yale extended to a 10-point lead, their largest of the night so far, but the Quakers cut it to five on back-to-back possessions after a Brodeur hook and a Goodman three. A Bulldog trey and a Brodeur layup made it 62-56 into the third media timeout of the half.
 
Woods sank one from behind the arc to cut the deficit to three, but at that point Yale went on its decisive run from the field to close out the game on a 16-6 spurt.
 
Up Next
Penn will be at home for the next two weekends of Ivy League play, starting next Friday and Saturday when the Quakers host Dartmouth and Harvard. Both games will start at 7 p.m.