NEW HAVEN, Conn. – In a meeting of the top two teams in the Ivy League standings, the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team let a late lead slip away as Yale pulled away for an 81-72 victory at the John J. Lee Amphitheater.
 
The Quakers were up 71-70 when Jonah Charles hit a three-pointer with exactly three minutes left, the visitors' third straight trey punctuating a 9-1 run. However, Yale had an emphatic answer, scoring the next seven points in a span of 1:50 and ending the game on an 11-1 streak.
 
Penn saw its five-game win streak snapped as the Quakers fell to 8-3 in the Ivy League, 11-13 overall. Yale improved to 9-1 in Ivy play, 15-9 overall, and the Bulldogs can put a stranglehold on the Ivy League regular-season title with a win tomorrow night over Princeton.
 
Despite the loss, Penn clinched a spot in Ivy Madness at Harvard on Friday night as Brown fell to Princeton in Providence, 69-50.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn split the season series with Yale for the fifth season in a row.
 
*Sophomore Clark Slajchert had yet another double-figure scoring game as he led Penn with 18 points, including a 4-of-5 night on three-point shots.
 
*Freshman Nick Spinoso was the revelation on Friday night, as he scored 11 points which was one shy of his season/career high; what made the outburst all the more surprising was that Spinoso had scored just seven points COMBINED across 11 appearances dating back to Penn's game at Towson on November 23.
 
*Sophomore Max Martz also had 11 points on Friday night to go with seven rebounds.
 
*Sophomore Jordan Dingle cooled off in a major way; after averaging 27.4 ppg during Penn's win streak, he scored just 10 on Friday.
 
*Junior Michael Moshkovitz led Penn in rebounds (10), assists (6) and steals (2) and had four points.
 
*This was the first game Penn played without senior Jelani Williams; after being the only player to start every game this season, he sat with a cast protecting his broken finger. The hope is he will be back in time for Ivy Madness.
 
*Yale was led by Jalen Gabbidon, who scored 32 points including 20 in the second half. Azar Swain added 15, while EJ Jarvis had a double-double (12 points/11 rebounds) and Bez Mbeng stuffed the stat sheet with 10 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two blocked shots.
 
How It Happened
Penn was down 6-2 early, but Dingle scored five in a row to set the Quakers off on a 10-0 run that put them in front 12-6. That lead held for a little more than 10 minutes, before a Gabbidon jumper put the Bulldogs in front 22-21. The teams traded leads four times the rest of the half, but a late 8-0 Yale run pushed the hosts in front 36-32 at the break.
 
Yale's lead held up through the first eight minutes of the second half, before Spinoso converted three-point plays on consecutive possessions—one with the old-fashioned and-1, the other from long distance—that turned Penn's 51-47 deficit into a 53-51 lead. At that point, Gabbidon and Swain took over. They hit treys on consecutive possessions, the start of a three-minute run that saw them score 15 points which pushed the Bulldogs out to a 66-58 advantage. The Amphitheater was rocking.
 
Penn held its poise. Down 69-62 with less than five minutes left, Slajchert dialed long distance on back-to-back possessions, and then after Gabbidon made one of two free throws Charles buried his trey from right in front of the Penn bench with exactly three minutes left to put the Quakers in front, 71-70.
 
Now it was Yale's turn to respond. Matt Knowling found Isaiah Kelly, who flushed home a dunk, and then after Charles missed another three-point attempt Gabbidon drilled a dagger three with 1:51 to play. Slajchert then missed from distance and Gabbidon, who was feeling it at this point, drove the baseline for a reverse layup that made it 77-71 with 1:10 left.
 
Penn got two bites at the apple out of a timeout, Martz and Dingle missing threes as the clock moved into the final minute, and at that point the Quakers were forced to foul. Yale made its shots.
 
Up Next
Penn continues this Ivy weekend road trip with a game at Brown tomorrow night at 6 p.m.