NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team held a 10-point lead over Ivy League front-runner Yale with just 1:40 left on Friday night, and it looked like the Quakers were on the way to their first season sweep of the Bulldogs since 2011.
What happened in the final 1:40, though, can only be described as catastrophic.
Yale threw a full-court press on Penn, and it completely unhinged the Quakers. Six turnovers. A missed front end of a 1-and-1. Throw in a missed layup, and you have all the ingredients for a final 13-0 run by the Bulldogs and a 76-73 loss that will be hard to stomach on the bus ride to Providence.
If there's a bright side—and, honestly, it's hard to find one in the moment—it is that the team just ahead of the Quakers in the Ivy League standings also lost, Brown falling at home to Princeton 71-49. So the Bears remain just a game ahead of the Quakers in fourth place in the Ivy standings at 6-5, Penn fifth at 5-6. They will meet in a massive game tomorrow night at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
Yale (21-6) remains alone in first place, 9-2 in Ivy play. Paul Atkinson led the Bulldogs with 18 points, while Jordan Bruner had 15 points and Eric Monroe added 12.
Notes
*For the second time in as many games, Penn lost despite shooting a better field-goal percentage (48.3) than its opponent (43.5); prior to last Saturday, the Quakers were 11-0 in such games this season.
*Penn knocked down 12 three-point baskets, most since hitting 14 at Howard on December 30; the Quakers have reached double figures in treys in the last four games and 11 times overall this season.
*Yale set an opponent high in the
Steve Donahue coaching era with 15 steals.
*Senior
AJ Brodeur scored 25 points to lead all scorers; it was his second-best scoring night this season. (He had 33 points against Saint Joseph's on January 18.)
*Brodeur became the program's all-time leader in career starts, with 116, and he now has 1,769 career points which is second on the all-time scoring list (58 behind all-time leader Ernie Beck from 1951-53).
*Brodeur—who entered the night leading the Ivy League in overall assists per game—had seven dimes, his 13th game this season with at least five assists.
*Brodeur also had three blocked shots, giving him 192 for his career which is three shy of Geoff Owens' career mark set from 1997-2001.
*Senior
Devon Goodman scored a season-high 23 points, including a career-high six three-pointers, and he also tied a season/career high with six rebounds and dished off three assists.
*Goodman went 6-of-7 on three-point shots, a Penn player-best 85.7 percentage in the Donahue era (minimum five attempts); three players had previously gone 5-of-6 on treys, most recently freshman
Max Martz against Long Beach State on December 1.
*This marked the first time Penn had two players reach 20 points in the same game since
Jordan Dingle scored 27 and
Ryan Betley added 20 against Arizona on November 29.
*Martz scored 12 points on Friday night, hitting double figures for the sixth time in Penn's last seven games (11.0 ppg in that span).
*Freshman
Lucas Monroe made just his second collegiate start—he also started at Howard on December 30—and finished the night with five points and six rebounds.
*Betley returned to the lineup on Friday, playing 24 minutes after missing the previous four games to injury. He had three points.
How It Happened
Penn was red-hot to start the game, using a 9-0 run to turn an 11-5 deficit into a 14-11 lead. Five of the Quakers' next seven field goals, over a 2:38 span, came from beyond the arc—the only exceptions being
AJ Brodeur layups—and when
Devon Goodman knocked down his third trey of the run Penn's lead was 33-22. It was 41-29 when Yale went on an 8-0 run, but the Quakers scored five of the final seven points of the half and took a 46-39 lead into the locker room.
The offense stalled to start the second half, and Yale took advantage. While the Quakers were going scoreless for the first 4:12 of the period, the Bulldogs hit a pair of three-pointers that got them within one, at 46-45.
Lucas Monroe finally ended the drought with a baseline layup, and it was 48-45 at the first media timeout.
It was 52-47 when Wyatt Yess and Eric Monroe hit back-to-back three-pointers to give Yale its first lead since 11-10, only for Goodman to answer with his fifth trey of the night. The teams tied two more times, at 55-55 and 57-57, before
AJ Brodeur had old-fashioned three-point plays on consecutive possessions which pushed Penn in front, 63-59.
The Red and Blue's lead was still 65-63 after August Mahoney's acrobatic layup for Yale when Brodeur shook loose for a bucket in the paint, then consecutive defensive stops led to three-pointers by
Max Martz and Goodman. It was an 8-0 run that took 1:35 of game time, and when Goodman's shot swished through Penn's lead was 73-63 with 2:52 left. It would stay that way until just 1:38 remained, when Yale's Monroe turned the ball over only for Goodman to turn it right back and foul Jared Gabbidon on an inbounds. Gabbidon hit both sides of a 1-and-1 and the score was 73-65.
Things escalated quickly from there.
Yale promptly fouled
Eddie Scott on the inbounds, and the junior missed the front end of the 1-and-1 (the only free throw Penn missed all night). Monroe quickly nailed a trey which made the score 73-68, and the crowd stirred to life as the Bulldogs called timeout.
Yale's press immediately paid dividends out of the stoppage, Penn's
Lucas Monroe getting forced into a held ball with the possession arrow going to the Bulldogs. Yale's Monroe missed a trey and Goodman grabbed the rebound, but as he hurried the ball up the floor it was poked away from behind and Yale gained possession amid a scrum at midcourt. As the crowd swelled with noise and bodies flew around the court, Paul Atkinson dribbled it down and laid it in for 73-70. The Bulldogs again called timeout.
Penn again turned it over, then compounded the issue by fouling Yale's Jordan Bruner who hit both sides of a 1-and-1. That made it a 1-point game with 51 seconds still to play, the Bulldogs making up almost the entire 10-point deficit in just 47 seconds. Penn then finally broke the press, but as Brodeur went up with a layup the ball was blocked out of his hand and went out of bounds. Initially ruled a Penn ball, the call was reversed after a review and Yale had the ball with a chance to win with 35 seconds left.
Yale went to Atkinson, but he threw up a layup that never had a chance, Penn's Monroe grabbed the rebound but he was immediately swarmed and another held ball was called, this time the Quakers getting the arrow. However, that advantage was nullified almost immediately as the ball was inbounded, only to be stolen and dunked as the roof blew off the Lee Amphitheater. Just like that, Yale led 74-73 with 13 seconds to play.
Forced to rush the ball up the floor, Penn again turned it over against Yale's withering press and Gabbidon threw it down again to make it a 3-point game. Penn still had a chance to tie, but
Ryan Betley's turnaround three-pointer was well off the mark as the Yale crowd went crazy.
