PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team tipped off 2023 and its Ivy League schedule in style with a wire-to-wire 74-53 victory over Brown Monday afternoon at The Palestra. With that, the Quakers (8-5, 1-0 Ivy) earned their seventh consecutive win.
Penn used a 21-0 run bridging the end of the first quarter with the beginning of the second to control the game in its entirety and capture the win over the Bears (7-6, 0-1 Ivy).
Quaker Notemeal
*The Quakers extended their win streak to seven straight games, the team's longest since the 2019-20 season.
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Mandy McGurk led all scorers with a career-high 28 points. She also finished with a season high in steals (5) and a career high in field goals made (12).
*McGurk's scoring total is the second-highest output by a Penn player this season.
Kayla Padilla tallied 31 at Marist to begin the year.
*Padilla (13 points) and
Jordan Obi (12) also finished in double-figures while Obi added a game-high seven assists.
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Floor Toonders grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds to go along with her six points, three assists, a block and a steal.
*Penn shot 42.4 percent (28-for-66) from the field and 37.5 percent (6-for-16) from beyond-the-arc. The Quakers were also 75 percent (12-for-16) from the charity stripe.
*The Quakers scored 30 points off 22 Brown turnovers. They also out-scored the Bears on second-chance points, 15-5.
How It Happened
Penn continued its high-scoring form from Friday, leading from the jump to get out to an early 2-0 lead courtesy of
Mandy McGurk's jumper in the paint. The Quakers' advantage extended to 6-2 with a little over seven minutes to play. A 6-0 run heading into the under-five media timeout ballooned to 19 unanswered points with a 25-4 lead heading into the second quarter.
After
Silke Milliman upped the Penn run to 21-0 with a hook shot to start the second quarter, Brown answered back with five straight points to trim the deficit back to 18 points. The Quakers didn't get complacent though, re-grouping to go on an 11-4 run, converting on five of seven shots, to lead 40-13 with 4:37 to go in the half.
The Bears' defense kept Penn in check during the middle stages of the stanza, missing six straight shots before
Jordan Obi broke the drought with a layup at the two-minute mark. Brown closed the half with six points in under two minutes as the Quakers maintained a 45-19 lead at the break.
With Penn shooting 48.7 percent (19-for-39) from the field, McGurk led all scorers on the floor with 16 points in the first 20 minutes of action, adding three rebounds, three assists and a career-high five steals to her stat sheet. Obi had 10 points with six assists, while
Floor Toonders scored six points with a team-high six rebounds and a block.
Brown scored first in the third quarter on a pull-up jumper following a Penn turnover. The Quakers quickly answered back with
Kayla Padilla's four-point play following her three-pointer. Their run teetered at 8-6 over the next three minutes and change as Penn led 57-29 at the under-five media timeout in the period.
Layups from McGurk and Padilla were the Quakers' only two shots made over the final four minutes of the third quarter, scoreless over the final two minutes, to maintain a 61-36 lead heading into the final frame.
All-in-all, Brown out-played Penn in the fourth quarter despite the large deficit, converting on 40 percent of its shots from the field, while the Quakers were just 4-of-14 on field goals. Although Penn was narrowly outscored in the final stanza, it held on for the 74-53 victory.
Up Next
The Quakers search for their eighth and ninth wins in a row, when they close out the homestand against Cornell Friday at 6 p.m. for CYO/Youth/Camper Reunion Night and Columbia on Saturday at 5 p.m. on Alumnae Day at The Palestra.
#FightOnPenn
