NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team was blitzed by a 21-0 Iona run that bridged the two halves on Monday night, and the Quakers fell to the Gaels, 78-50, in the 2022-23 season opener for both teams.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn had 14 assists on its 18 baskets but struggled offensively, shooting just 32.7 percent from the field (18-55) and 15.4 percent from beyond the arc (3-25).
 
*Junior Jordan Dingle led Penn with 16 points, giving him 896 career points just one game into his third season wearing the Red and Blue.
 
*Sophomore George Smith was the only other Quakers player to reach double figures in the scoring column, as he finished with 10 points, and he also grabbed six rebounds.
 
*Sophomore Eddie Holland III had a solid shooting night, hitting three of his four attempts and finishing with nine points which is more than he scored all of last season (4).
 
*Senior Max Lorca-Lloyd nearly had a double-double as he established career highs in points (9) and rebounds (a game-high 14, including six on the offensive boards). He also had three blocked shots.
 
*Penn's only other scorers were junior Clark Slajchert, sophomore Nick Spinoso, and freshman Cam Thrower, with two points each.
 
How It Happened
For about 13 minutes, this game met the pregame expectations. With Penn picked to win the Ivy League and Iona picked to win the MAAC, a lot of mid-major followers had this game penciled in as one to watch.
 
The game was tied, 11-11, when Penn went on a six-point run while holding Iona scoreless for more than six minutes. Dingle got the run started with with a layup, and then Lorca-Lloyd took it from there with a dunk off a nice Moshkovitz feed and a layup off a Charles pass.
 
Shema Osborn ended Iona's scoreless stretch with an emphatic dunk at the 7:03 mark of the half, and everything changed after that. That said, the warning signs were there: Penn hadn't scored in three minutes at that point.
 
Osborn's dunk set Iona off on an 11-0 run that took less than 90 seconds, and then after a pair of Dingle foul shots ended a 4:42 Penn scoring drought the Gaels ran off four more points to make it 26-19. A Slajchert drive and layup made it 26-21 with 4:33 to play, but as it turned out that would be the last field goal of the half as Iona tightened the screws on defense. Instead, the Gaels ran off the last eight points of the period and took a 34-21 lead to the locker room.
 
Any chances of a comeback were quickly foiled, as Iona needed less than four minutes to score the first 13 points of the second half to go in front 47-21. In all, it was a 21-0 run—31-4 going back to Penn's 17-11 lead—and this game was put to bed before the first media timeout of the period.
 
To its credit, Penn kept fighting. The Quakers held Iona without a point for nearly three minutes and had a 6-0 run to make it 47-27, and at 52-28 the Red and Blue used another 5-0 run to move the margin inside 20. Unfortunately that was as close as Penn got the rest of the way.
 
Up Next
Penn plays at the University of Missouri on Friday night, tipping off with the Tigers at 7 p.m. (8 p.m. Philadelphia time). This will be just Penn's second trip to the Show-Me State, the first coming December 2, 1995 when the Quakers lost at Saint Louis, 58-51.