CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team earned its first win at Harvard since the 2011-12 season on Friday night, gaining a 78-74 victory over the Crimson in a game that was televised to a national audience on ESPNU.
 
Starting a stretch that has the Quakers playing six of their next seven games on the road, Penn improved to 8-12 overall and moved to 5-2 in Ivy League play. Harvard fell to 10-7 overall and is now 2-3 in the Ivies.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*The last time Penn won at Harvard was February 25, 2012, a 55-54 decision.
 
*Penn improved to 7-0 this season when leading at the half.
 
*Penn scored 45 points in the first half, tied for the highest-scoring half this season (also second half at Temple and second half vs. Lafayette).
 
*For the second straight game, Penn went 17-20 (85.0 percent) at the foul line.
 
*Sophomore Jordan Dingle led Penn with 31 points on Friday night, his second straight game with 31 points and third such game this season; 23 of his points came in the first half.
 
*After scoring 31 points last Saturday vs. Yale, Dingle is the first Penn player with back-to-back 30-point games in Ivy League play; the last player with back-to-back 30-point games overall is Keven McDonald, who had 35 against Tennessee and 32 one day later against Ohio State at the 1975 Sugar Bowl Classic in New Orleans.
 
*Dingle is the first Penn player with three 30-point games in the same season since Bruce Lefkowitz in 1986-87; Lefko scored 33 at Harvard that season, 32 at home against Saint Francis (Pa.), and 31 at Brown.

*Dingle went 10-of-11 at the foul line on Friday; his 10 makes were one shy of a Penn player high in the Steve Donahue coaching era, behind Sam Jones' 11 makes on February 26, 2016 vs. Cornell.

*Dingle also led Penn with three assists.
 
*Sophomore Max Martz set a season high with 15 points, and after taking just nine foul shots this season entering the day he went 4-of-4 at the charity stripe to clinch the win.
 
*Sophomore Clark Slajchert scored 10 points, his team-high sixth straight game reaching double figures in the scoring column.
 
*Junior Michael Moshkovitz hit foul trouble early and played just five minutes in the first half; in the second half, he scored all of his six points and grabbed all of his nine rebounds (which tied a season/career high).
 
*Senior Jelani Williams finished the day with nine points and six rebounds.
 
*Noah Kirkwood led Harvard with 27 points, eight rebounds and three steals while Luka Sakota scored 18 points and Kale Catchings added 10.
 
How It Happened
Harvard's Lavietes Pavilion has been a house of horrors for Penn the last decade, and early returns weren't promising on Friday when the Crimson went crazy on offense and jumped out to an 18-5 lead. At that point, the hosts were 8-of-9 from the field while Penn was 2-of-7.
 
Led by Dingle, the Quakers charged back. The sophomore scored five in a row and seven of Penn's next nine points which got the guests within 10, and then at 30-20 a steal and dunk by Williams set the Red and Blue off on an 18-7 run that ended with Williams scoring on a floater over Mason Forbes to give Penn its first lead of the day at 38-37. The Quakers kept charging from there and took a 45-38 lead into the locker room. In all, it was a 40-20 scoring binge from that 13-point deficit.
 
Kirkwood opened the second-half scoring, but Penn scored eight of the next 10 points to extend its lead to 11 at 53-42. However, at that point the Crimson came to life and in the process got the crowd involved. Catchings scored five points, the catalyst of an 11-0 Harvard run that took just 2:07 of game time and tied things at 53-53, Evan Nelson's and-1 free throw coming out of a media timeout completing the run.
 
The teams traded points after that, Kirkwood matching buckets by Williams and Dingle, but then Williams scored three points over a pair of possessions and then hit Moshkovitz on a backdoor bucket for a five-point run that put the Quakers in front 62-57 at the under-8 media timeout.

Forbes and Sakota got Harvard back within a point out of the break, but after a possession that saw Penn miss three different opportunities at the bucket the Quakers gained some separation. Dingle stole the ball from Kirkwood and converted in transition, and after Kirkwood missed a trey Slajchert drove to the hole for a 66-61 lead which forced a Harvard timeout.
 
The Crimson missed a pair of foul shots and then Moshkovitz put back a Slajchert miss. After another defensive stop, Dingle scored again off a Moshkovitz feed and suddenly the lead was nine with just 2:25 left.
 
Harvard kept battling back, the crowd imploring them. But Slajchert (2) and Martz (4) hit six foul shots in a row to move the score from one possession to two possessions in the closing seconds.
 
Up Next
Penn is back on the road next weekend for a pair of Ivy League games, traveling to Columbia on Friday (7 p.m.) and then moving across the Empire State to meet Cornell on Saturday (6 p.m.).