PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team dug itself into a significant hole against Towson on Sunday, and while the Quakers valiantly worked their way back they couldn't get all the way out in taking an 80-74 loss to the preseason CAA favorites at The Palestra.
 
Penn is now 0-3 on the young season, while Towson improved to 3-0 with its second straight road win.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*For the second straight game, Penn tied its opponent in three-point baskets made as both the Quakers and the Tigers hit nine. Penn is 6-10 in such games in the Donahue era.
 
*Penn went 9-of-10 at the foul line on Sunday, making the Quakers 20-of-21 (95.2 percent) across the last two games; that said, Towson took 32 foul shots to Penn's 10.
 
*Penn's 13 turnovers were a team low for the young season, while the Quakers' eight steals were a high.
 
*Junior Jordan Dingle led all scorers in the game with 24 points, all of them coming after the 18:31 mark of the second half after he was held scoreless in the first.
 
*Dingle now has 938 points in his career, through 54 games.
 
*Dingle also tied his season/career high with three steals, previously set Friday at Missouri, and had four rebounds and three assists.
 
*Junior Clark Slajchert had his second straight 21-point game, 11 of them coming in the first few minutes of the contest. It was his third 20-point game at Penn.

*Penn had two players hit the 20-point mark in the same game for the first time in almost a year; the last time it happened was December 4, 2021, Dingle (22) and Michael Wang (21) at Temple
 
*After going 1-of-10 on three-point shots in Penn's first two games, Slajchert was 5-of-7 beyond the arc on Sunday; the five treys were a season/career high.
 
*Sophomore Nick Spinoso battled all night at both ends of the floor and finished with 12 points—going 6-of-11 from the field—five rebounds and four assists, a season/career high.
 
*Junior Max Martz scored eight points on Sunday, his season high.
 
*Sophomore George Smith was scoreless but tied with Spinoso and Slajchert for team-high honors in rebounds (5 each).
 
*Spinoso and sophomore Eddie Holland III had two blocked shots each.
 
*For Towson, Nicolas Timberlake dropped 23 points including four triples while Cameron Holden scored 17, Charles Thompson had 14 (with eight rebounds), and Jason Gibson added 11.
 
How It Happened
Both teams came out hot early on, the score 12-11 barely four minutes in as Slajchert had eight points by the first media timeout. He hit another trey, his third of the night, out of that timeout to stop a five-point Towson run. The teams traded points essentially to the third media timeout of the first half, a pair of Martz free throws making it 22-20 as the game got back to action after that break. At that point Penn's offense went ice cold, the Quakers going more than eight minutes without a field goal. Towson took advantage, scoring 10 in a row to go in front by double digits and taking a 34-24 lead into the locker room.
 
The Tigers scored the first four points of the second half, extending their lead to 14, but Dingle finally got untracked with six straight that got Penn back within single digits. The margin hovered around that 10-point mark for several minutes, before the Quakers had a three-minute scoring drought that Towson took full advantage of. The Tigers scored 10 unanswered points over a 2:09 stretch, Thompson's layup putting the visitors in front by 21 as the half neared its midpoint.
 
To its credit, Penn didn't panic. Martz knocked down a triple, and then Spinoso blocked a shot at one end and fed Dingle for a transition layup at the other. After another stop, Spinoso found Reese McMullen underneath and the sophomore spun in his first collegiate points. Towson missed on a turnaround, and Dingle drove for the layup. Just like that, Penn was back within 12 and the Tigers were taking a timeout. Out of the break, Penn got another stop, Martz getting a steal, and that led to a Spinoso layin that got Penn within 10 at 57-47 with just less than eight minutes left.
 
Towson held on from there, though. Penn essentially traded points with the Tigers for several minutes, all efforts to get the margin into single digits thwarted by the Towson attack. Dingle finally made it happen with his only three-pointer of the night, the end of another personal five-point run that made the score 71-64 with less than a minute to play. Penn was forced to foul the rest of the way, though, and Towson made enough free throws to keep the Quakers at bay.
 
Up Next
Penn plays its third game in five days on Tuesday, making the shortest road trip in NCAA Division 1 basketball when it "travels" a half-mile to Drexel. Tipoff with the Dragons is 7 p.m. at the Daskalakis Athletics Center (DAC).