PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team continued play at the Cathedral Classic Presented by the Sheraton University City Hotel on Saturday, playing its best game of the season in taking an 81-69 decision from defending Patriot League champion (and preseason favorite) Colgate.
 
The weekend has marked a homecoming for the Raiders' head coach, Matt Langel, who won two Ivy League championships wearing the Red and Blue in the late 1990s and two more as an assistant coach under Fran Dunphy in the 2000s. The current Quakers were in no mood to welcome him back, however, pinning Colgate with its second loss in as many days while improving to 2-0 on the weekend.
 
Both teams are now 4-4 on the season.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn has won three in a row, the wins coming over the last five days.
 
*Penn set season highs with 18 assists and nine steals on Saturday.
 
*Penn hit 11 three-point shots, giving the Quakers 23 treys over the two games in this tournament. Penn has shot 47.9 percent from beyond the arc the last two days (23-48).
 
*Penn shot 60.4 from the field overall (32-53), not just a season best but second-best in the Steve Donahue coaching era (61.4 percent against Delaware State on December 27, 2017).
 
*Colgate had 14 turnovers, an opponent high this season.
 
*Junior Clark Slajchert was absolutely spectacular on Saturday with a career-high 33 points; his previous best was 25 last year at Arkansas.
 
*Slajchert matched his season/career high with five three-pointers and was 13-of-18 overall from the field.
 
*Slajchert—who has scored a double-figure total in six of Penn's last seven games—also set a season/career high with three steals.
 
*Junior Jordan Dingle, fresh off scoring his 1,000th career point yesterday in a win over Hartford, scored 26 points on Saturday; he was 10-of-16 from the field and hit three three-pointers.
 
*Dingle has scored 20 or more points in five straight games (22.6 ppg), the first Penn player to accomplish the feat since Walt Frazier Jr. way back in the 1988-89 season.

*The last time two Penn players had 25 or more points in the same game was January 18, 2007, when Mark Zoller scored 28 and Ibrahim Jaaber scored 27 in a 93-92 win at La Salle.
 
*Junior Max Martz scored 12 points, his fourth straight game scoring in double figures; he hit three three-pointers and is 10-of-21 (47.6 pct) beyond the arc during this four-game stretch.
 
*Martz also matched his career high with three steals.
 
*Sophomore Nick Spinoso doubled his previous season/career high with eight assists on Saturday—most by a Penn player this season—and also had eight boards, one shy of his season/career best.
 
*Colgate was led by Keegan Records who had 17 points, while Chandler Baker scored 14 and Tucker Richardson added 10.
 
How It Happened
The visiting Raiders were red hot to start, knocking down four of their first six shots to go in front 10-0 and forcing Donahue to take a timeout before the game was five minutes old. Colgate scored the next three points out of the stoppage, but Slajchert got a steal and fed Dingle for a layup to get Penn on the board and that seemed to spark the Quakers.
 
Colgate's lead was 16-4 when Martz was fouled as he made a three-pointer. The junior hit the foul shot on the other side of a media timeout, and that was the start of a 12-2 run that got the Quakers within two at 18-16. The teams traded points for several possessions after that, but when Dingle scored on a lefty scoop shot with a little over five minutes remaining in the half Penn had its first lead of the day at 25-24.
 
The lead switched hands two more times before halftime, with Penn taking a 34-31 lead into the locker room when Martz blocked Oliver Lynch-Daniels' three-point attempt at the halftime buzzer.
 
The Red and Blue's lead extended to 42-33 when Dingle nailed a trey out of the first media timeout in the second half, but Colgate got back within four at 52-48. The Quakers then took advantage of a rare foul that was called away from the ball as Slajchert was draining a floater in the lane. Given the ball back, Penn got a second-chance trey from Slajchert to make it a five-point possession. After another stop, Slajchert hit a runner to make it a personal seven-point run, and the Quakers' lead hit double digits for the first time at 59-48.
 
Colgate is the defending Patriot League champion and favorites to repeat this year, and the Raiders weren't about to panic. They scored the game's next seven points to get within 59-55. However, just when it looked like Penn might panic the Quakers ripped off seven in a row of their own to go back up by 11 with less than five minutes to play.
 
Penn briefly fumbled things with just under two minutes to play and holding a 75-61 lead. Colgate went to a full-court press and scored six points in 28 seconds to make it an eight-point game. But the Quakers eventually got the ball down the floor—inbounding three times in the process—and Martz found Jonah Charles for a layup as the game went inside a minute. That put a cap on things.
 
Up Next
Penn will face Delaware in a de facto championship game on Sunday at 4:30 p.m.; the Blue Hens are also 2-0 on the weekend after defeating Hartford on Saturday, 78-50. That will be the second game of a single-admission doubleheader, as Colgate faces Hartford in the first game tipping off at 2 p.m.