PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team got a rude re-introduction to college basketball on Wednesday night in Tallahassee, getting handled easily by No. 20 Florida State. There is little time to dwell on that loss, though, as the Quakers travel to the D.C. area to continue this three-game road trip to start the 2021-22 campaign.
 
GAME 2 – PENN (0-1) at GEORGE MASON (1-0)
Friday, Nov. 12, 2021 | 7 p.m.
EagleBank Arena | Fairfax, Va.
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Listen (Mason Audio) | Live Stats
Penn Game Notes | Mason Game Notes
 
The Penn-Mason Series
• This is the fifth meeting between the Quakers and the Patriots in men's basketball, and the fourth to take place in Fairfax.
 
• Mason holds a 3-1 lead in the series, but Penn's win came in the most recent meeting which was the 2018-19 season opener.
 
• GMU won the first three meetings, which took place over a four-year span from the 2013-14 season to the 2016-17 campaign.
 
• Penn is 99-109 all-time against programs that currently constitute the Atlantic 10 Conference. The Quakers have two more A-10 opponents on the schedule in Big 5 rivals Saint Joseph's (Dec. 8) and La Salle (Dec. 11). Penn also could face Davidson at the Myrtle Beach Invitational; that meeting would take place next Friday.
 
About Wednesday
Playing its first regular-season game in 613 days—March 7, 2020 to be precise—Penn struggled with No. 20 Florida State in Tallahassee. The Quakers' 105-70 loss marked the first time they gave up gave up 100 points since a 104-67 loss to Washington early in the 2015-16 season.
 
Penn MBB by the Numbers
2 • Penn players who made their collegiate debuts on Wednesday despite being upperclassmen: senior co-captain Jelani Williams and junior Jonah Charles; in total, 11 of the 19 players on Penn's roster had never suited up for an NCAA Division I college basketball game entering the Florida State contest.
 
3 • Penn players with international playing experience: senior Michael Wang (China) and juniors Max Lorca-Lloyd (Chile) and Michael Moshkovitz (Israel). Of note, Moshkovitz started every game when Israel won the 2018 FIBA Under-20 European Championship in Germany, the first gold medal by an Israeli team at a FIBA event.
 
6 • 20-point games by sophomore Jordan Dingle after he led the Quakers with 23 Wednesday night at FSU; he has 47 points in two season openers during his career, as a freshman he scored 24 at Alabama.
 
8 • Penn players who have been named Ivy League Rookie of the Year, the most recent being Dingle. He won the award in 2019-20, but is listed as a sophomore because he left school last year to preserve eligibility.
 
9 • Penn will play nine games in November—eight of them away from home—with the tenth coming on December 1 when Villanova comes to The Palestra; in an informal survey of Division I SIDs, only Coppin State (10) will play more games in November than the Quakers.
 
12 • Points scored by Charles and sophomore Clark Slajchert Wednesday night in their college debuts.
 
15 • Penn's 19-player roster features players from 12 different states, the District of Columbia—Williams attended Sidwell Friends—and two foreign countries (China and Israel).
 
38 • Total starts made in 2019-20 by Dingle (20), fellow "sophomore" Max Martz (14)—who is out with an injury at the moment—and junior co-captain Lucas Monroe (4).
 
59 • Overall wins by Penn during its last three seasons: 24 in 2017-18, 19 in 2018-19, 16 in 2019-20. That's the most over a three-year span since the Quakers had 62 wins from 2004-05 to 2006-07.
 
613 • The number of days it had been since Penn last played a competitive intercollegiate game when they took the floor Wednesday night in Tallahassee. In its last game, Penn defeated Columbia 85-65 at The Palestra on March 7, 2020—and what a game it was. AJ Brodeur became the program's all-time leading scorer AND recorded the first triple-double in program history (21 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists).
 
820 • Three-point field goals made by Penn over its last three seasons; the Quakers hit at least 10 treys in 13 games in 2019-20; they hit nine triples on Wednesday, Dingle hitting five of them and Charles making the other four.
 
991 • The number of days between games in which Wang scored for Penn; a regular in the lineup as a freshman in 2018-19—he made nine starts and had 10 double-figure scoring games—Wang missed the 2019-20 campaign to injury.
 
1.000 • Free-throw percentage by Slajchert on Wednesday; his 8-of-8 performance at the charity stripe was the best by a Penn player in the Steve Donahue coaching era.
 
1,142 • Total collegiate points scored by the 19 players on Penn's 2021-22 roster entering the season. That includes just four players with more than 100 points: Dingle (338), Washington (261), Wang (222) and Martz (205). Total points by the eight players who have graduated since Penn's last game? 4,211.