PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team struggled to score at the offensive end and could not come up with stops when it needed them on defense. It was lethal combination against a Princeton team that came in with a 4-8 record but showed more energy and better execution almost the entire way in taking a 78-64 victory Saturday night at The Palestra.
 
The game was the Ivy League opener for both teams, and for the second straight year the Tigers got the upper hand in this rivalry. The teams will play the return game next Friday night at Princeton's Jadwin Gym.
 
Notes
*After reaching double figures in three-point field goals made in seven of the last eight games, Penn hit just three treys on Saturday night which was tied for a season low (also at Rice on November 9).
 
*Penn shot 3-of-23 from beyond the arc, a season-low 13.0 percent.
 
*Penn entered Saturday's game leading the Ivy League in field-goal percentage (47.0) but shot a season-low 36.6 percent on a night when they took a season-high 71 shots.
 
*After dishing out at least 20 assists in each of the last five games, Penn had just nine assists on Saturday which was one shy of its season low.
 
*Penn lost despite committing just seven turnovers, a season low.
 
*Princeton won even though the Tigers took fewer shots than any other Penn opponent this season (54) and hit just two treys which also is an opponent low this season.
 
*Freshman guard Jordan Dingle led Penn with 21 points, after missing Monday's win at Howard due to injury. He has five games with 20 or more points this season, a team high.
 
*Senior guard Devon Goodman scored 16 points, his seventh straight game in double figures (15.0 ppg in that span).
 
*Goodman also tied his season/career high with seven assists; he has 30 assists across Penn's last five games.
 
*Senior forward AJ Brodeur extended his double-figure scoring streak against Division 1 opponents to 36 games with 12 points and finished two rebounds shy of a double-double with eight.
 
*Brodeur entered tonight's game leading the Ivy League in assists per game but had just one on Saturday.
 
*Freshman guard Max Martz grabbed six rebounds, a season/career high.
 
How It Happened
The first half was defined by Penn's offensive droughts. The first one came after Jordan Dingle made it 10-8 Princeton on a jumper with 15:33 left in the first half. The Quakers scored just two points over the next 5:12, on a pair of Jarrod Simmons free throws, and the Tigers took advantage to go up 20-10. It was 22-12 when Eddie Scott scored on a putback and then Dingle knocked down a trey to make the score 22-17, but Princeton was able to go back up by nine over the next two minutes.
 
Betley and Dingle scored baskets in the paint which cut Princeton's lead to 29-25 with 3:48 left in the half, but Princeton's Ryan Schwieger immediately answered in the lane and then Jaelin Llewellyn drained a three-pointer. That was the impetus to a 10-2 run that ended the half, Schwieger punctuating it with a trey right near the buzzer. Princeton's lead was 39-27 at the break, and they quickly added to it with the first four points of the second half.
 
Penn got within 10 points on just two occasions in the second half, at 55-45 and again at 57-47 with 11 minutes left. However, Princeton set off on a 12-1 run spanning a little more than two minutes, the dagger in that run coming when Jose Morales—who entered the game averaging 3.9 points per game—knocked down a rainbow fallaway from the right corner as the shot clock expired for his only points of the game. That made the score 69-48 with just over six minutes to play and proved to be the knockout blow, as Penn never got closer than 11 the rest of the way.