PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team engaged in a back-and-forth game with Brown, so it was only appropriate that the Bears and Quakers traded blows in the game's final seconds Saturday at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
It looked like Brown might escape with the win when Kino Lilly drilled a three-pointer to give the Bears an 88-87 lead with 5.1 seconds left. However, that was just enough time for Penn's
Clark Slajchert to get the ball just inside midcourt, drive into the lane and hit a runner with 0.4 seconds remaining. That was the knockout blow as the Quakers walked out of Pizzitola with an 89-88 victory.
Penn improved to 12-13 overall and is now 9-3 in Ivy League play. The Quakers' win, coupled with Princeton's 81-75 victory at Yale, leaves Penn in third place but just a game behind both the Tigers and the Bulldogs in the loss column. Brown fell to 4-8 in Ivy play, 12-15 overall.
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn swept the season series with Brown for the third time in the last four years and has now won three in a row and eight of the last nine over the Bears.
*Penn finished the Yale-Brown road weekend with a split for the fourth season in a row.
*This was the highest-scoring one-point Ivy League game in program history; the previous high was an 86-85 win over Columbia on February 11, 1977.
*Penn set season highs in points (89) and second-half points (50).
*Penn won for just the second time this season when trailing at halftime (previously 1-12 in such games).
*On a night when Penn went 27-44 on two-point field goals and scored 46 points in the paint, the Quakers set a season low with six assists.
*Sophomore
Jordan Dingle had yet another 30-point game on Saturday, with 31; it was his fifth such game overall this season and fourth against an Ivy opponent.
*The last Penn player with five 30-point games in the same season? That would be the one and only Ernie Beck, who had five such games as a senior in 1952-53 and six such games as a junior in 1951-52.
*Dingle scored 23 points in the second half. Actually, the 23 came in the game's final 15:25.
*Dingle went 9-of-9 at the foul line on Saturday night, the best free-throw performance by a Penn player in the
Steve Donahue coaching era.
*Sophomore
Max Martz had another strong offensive night as he scored a season-high 18 points on 7-of-10 shooting including a pair of treys.
*Slajchert's winner capped a night in which he scored 16 points—giving him 34 for the weekend—and shot 7-of-9 from the field.
*Junior
Michael Moshkovitz finished the night with 12 points, his first double-figure scoring game since he had 12 at Princeton on January 17.
*Junior
Lucas Monroe flirted with a double-double on Saturday, scoring seven points and tying for game-high honors with nine rebounds.
*Brown lost a game in which the Bears had five different players reach double figures: Lilly (20), Dan Friday (19), Tamenang Choh (15), Kimo Ferrari (12) and Jaylan Gainey (11). Choh also had nine rebounds and nine assists, while Friday and Gainey had six boards each.
How It Happened
The first half was a back-and-forth affair, the Quakers and Bears trading the lead eight times and tying each other six times. However, Brown used a 12-1 run that covered nearly four minutes of game time to turn a 28-25 deficit into a 37-29 lead. A key sequence in the run came when Ferrari hit treys on back-to-back possessions.
George Smith hit a runner in the lane, Penn's first basket in nearly five minutes, but Brown kept it rolling with the next seven points. When Friday hit a pair of foul shots the Bears' lead was 44-31 and the run was 19-3. To its credit, the Quakers fought back in the final two minutes of the period, and when Monroe put back a Dingle trey attempt at the halftime buzzer Penn's 8-2 run to end the half had the Quakers within seven (46-39).
Brown's lead was still 10 when Dingle knocked down a three-pointer from the top of the key and was fouled on the shot with 15:25 to play. That set the sophomore off on a personal 12-point run that took just 1:20 of game time and was matched only by a solitary Brown free throw. Suddenly Penn was in front, 57-56. Brown briefly regained the lead before buckets by Slajchert, Moshkovitz and Martz pushed Penn out to a five-point lead and a pair of Dingle free throws made the score 65-58 Quakers. Overall, the run was 20-3.
Penn's lead was 81-72 with less than five minutes left when Brown made its move. Friday hit a jumper, Lilly dialed long distance, and Choh hit two foul shots that got the Bears within two. Moshkovitz ended the run with his own free throws, but Friday scored again to make it 83-81.
Dingle missed in the lane but Monroe skied for a putback tip-in, but once again Friday matched. Moshkovitz missed a jumper but so did Lilly, and as the clock went inside a minute Dingle drove the lane for two and a four-point Penn lead. Ferrari missed a three-point attempt but Choh rebounded and put it back for 87-85.
Penn took a timeout and then took some clock on the ensuing possession, but Dingle lost the ball in the lane and was tied up for a jump ball, possession arrow to Brown. The Bears got the ball to half court, called timeout, and set up a play that took Lilly off a screen for a trey attempt on the right wing. Nothing but net, and the Pizzitola Sports Center was in full throat.
Penn called a timeout, and after an official review the clock was set to 5.1 seconds.
Jonah Charles inbounded to Moshkovitz, who found Slajchert just over half-court. The sophomore raced into the paint and calmly sank his contested runner, the ball going through the net with 0.4 seconds left. Brown was out of timeouts, and their inbounds to half-court was deflected by Dingle as the clock ran out.
Up Next
Penn will be back in New England next Saturday, making the trip North to Dartmouth. The Quakers and Big Green will tip off at 2 p.m. in Hanover, N.H.
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