PHILADELPHIA – After playing first of its first six Ivy League games this season at home, the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team on Friday begins a stretch that has the Quakers playing six of their next seven games on the road. The run starts with a trip to Harvard to face the Crimson in a game that will air nationally on ESPNU.
 
GAME 20 – PENN (7-12, 4-2 Ivy League) at HARVARD (10-6, 2-2)
Friday, Jan. 28, 2022 | 5 p.m.
Lavietes Pavilion | Cambridge, Mass.
Watch Live on ESPNU | Listen Live (QAN) | Live Stats
Penn Game Notes | Harvard Game Notes
 
Quaker Audio Network (QAN)
Again this season, Penn fans can listen to most of Penn's men's basketball games through the Quaker Audio Network, a free Internet-based audio streaming service. Matt Leon will be on the play-by-play call for Friday's game. To access the Quaker Audio Network, simply type www.pennathletics.com/audio into your computer or device.
 
The Series with Harvard
• The Quakers lead the overall series, 134-46, but of course this series has been extremely competitive over the last decade-plus.
 
• Penn and Harvard have split the season series four of the last five years, the lone exception coming in 2018-19 when the Crimson won both regular-season meetings as well as an Ivy League Tournament semifinal at Yale.
 
• The teams split a pair of thrillers in 2019-20, Penn winning 75-72 in overtime at The Palestra and then Harvard avenging the loss with a 69-65 decision at Lavietes Pavilion. So yes, going by points the Crimson "won" the season series by a 141-140 score.
 
• Penn's last win at Lavietes came during the 2011-12 season, a 55-54 decision. Prior to that, the last road win came in the 2008-09 campaign.
 
Historic Road Trip
• Friday's game marks just the second time in Ivy League history Penn has traveled from Philadelphia to Harvard, played the Crimson, and then gone straight home. The other time it happened? The first season of conference play, in 1955-56. Every year since then, Penn's road trip to Northern New England included games against both Harvard and Dartmouth.
 
Ivy/Big 5 Weekly Honors
Penn swept the weekly honors on Monday as Jordan Dingle was named Ivy League and Philadelphia Big 5 Player of the Week while Clark Slajchert earned Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors. For Slajchert, it marked his second Rookie honor in three weeks and Penn's third such honor in the last four weeks. (George Smith was Ivy Rookie of the Week on January 3.)
 
Penn MBB By The Numbers
0 • Games lost by Penn this season when giving up fewer than 70 points (6-0 in such games).
 
2 • Penn upperclassmen who made their collegiate debuts on November 10: senior co-captain Jelani Williams and junior Jonah Charles; in total, 11 of the Quakers' 19 players had never suited up for an NCAA Division I college basketball game entering the 2021-22 season.
 
8 • Combined total of three-point baskets made by Penn over its last two games (3 at Princeton, 5 vs. Yale); in fact, the Quakers have hit eight or fewer treys in six straight games.
 
4 • Penn players who have at least one 20-point game this season: freshman George Smith, sophomores Jordan Dingle and Clark Slajchert, and senior Michael Wang.
 
5 • Consecutive double-figure scoring games by Slajchert entering the weekend; he has shot 52.1 percent from the field (24-46) over that same span, 56.8 percent on two-pointers (21-37).
 
6 • Different Penn players who have led the team in scoring over the last seven games: senior Williams; junior Charles; sophomores Dingle, Slajchert and Max Martz; and freshman Smith; prior to that, Dingle led the Quakers in scoring in 10 of their first 12 games this season.
 
6 • Turnovers committed last Saturday vs. Yale, tied for a program low in the Steve Donahue coaching era.
 
7.2 • Points-per-game difference between Ivy League games (9.7) and non-conference games (2.5) for junior Michael Moshkovitz.
 
8.5 • Points-per-game difference between Ivy League games (11.3) and non-conference games (2.8) for Smith; he has hit double figures four times in the last seven games, with another nine-point game in that span.
 
10 • The number of 20-point games by Dingle already this season; that includes a four-game streak that ended December 11 at La Salle.
 
10 • Penn players who have at least one double-figure scoring game this season entering the weekend.
 
12 • Different players who have made at least one start this season for Penn, which has used nine different starting lineups; that said, the Quakers have gone with the same starting five each of the last six games.
 
15 • Penn's 19-player roster features players from 12 different states, the District of Columbia, and two foreign countries (China and Israel).
 
16 • Years since a Penn player had two 30-point games in the same season, as Dingle has done this year (31 vs. Utah State, 31 vs. Yale); Ibrahim Jaaber scored 31 in wins over Navy and Harvard during Penn's 2005-06 Ivy title season.
 
17 • Games in the Donahue era in which Penn has put five players in double figures in the scoring column; the Quakers are 13-4 in those games, the most recent being their 78-68 win over Dartmouth on January 15.
 
18.7 • Dingle's overall points-per-game average entering the weekend, second among Ivy League players behind Yale's Azar Swain (19.7); Dingle has hit double figures in 15 of 18 games this season and nine points in each of the other three.
 
26 • Points scored by Williams two weekends ago, 13 against both Dartmouth and Princeton; after hitting double figures in two of Penn's first 12 games, he has three such games over the Quakers' last seven.
 
44 • Three-point baskets by Charles so far this season, against just five two-point baskets.
 
69.2 • Field-goal percentage by Martz over Penn's last four games (18-26); over the Quakers' last three games he has hit five of his six three-point shots.