PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team suffered a gut-punch loss at the Big 5 Classic on Saturday, as La Salle's Khalil Brantley hit a running three-pointer at the overtime buzzer to pin the Quakers with a 93-92 loss at the Wells Fargo Center.
Clark Slajchert matched a career high with 33 points on Saturday, and it looked like he had given Penn the victory when he hit a runner with 4.1 seconds left to give the Quakers a 92-90 lead. However, the Explorers quickly inbounded and got the ball to Brantley who pushed the ball down the floor and, just after crossing half-court, put up a shot between a pair of Penn defenders. The shot banked off the backboard and went down, touching off a wild celebration.
Penn fell to 5-4 overall (three of the losses coming in overtime) and finished Big 5 play at 1-2. La Salle is 6-2 overall and takes third place in the Big 5 standings with a 2-1 mark.
Quaker Notemeal
*This marked just the sixth time Penn lost a game in which it scored at least 92 points; the last time it happened was November 21, 2009, a 97-94 loss to Delaware in two overtimes.
*Penn shot a season-best 54.4 percent from the field (37-68) and for the second straight game went 12-of-25 (48.0 percent) from distance.
*This was Slajchert's second 30-point game this season—he had 31 at UMES two weeks ago—and his fourth such game at Penn. Slajchert's other 33-point game came last year against Colgate.
*Slajchert was 14-of-22 from the floor on Saturday and knocked down five of his eight three-point shots. The five treys matched his season and career high.
*Freshman
Tyler Perkins had 20 points on Saturday, his fourth such game already this season; 14 of those points came in the second half, with another four in the OT.
*Junior
Nick Spinoso flirted with a triple-double on Saturday, finishing the day with 17 points, eight rebounds—which tied for game-high honors—and eight assists. He also blocked two shots.
*
Andrew Laczkowski had eight points, one shy of his season high, and grabbed four rebounds (three on the offensive glass).
*Brantley's game-winning trey capped a 24-point night for him; he was one of six La Salle players to score in double figures along with Daeshon Shepherd (19 points), Anwar Gill (13), Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi (11), Rokas Jocius (10), and Jhamir Brickus (10). Shepherd tied Spinoso with eight rebounds, while Gill had seven assists and three steals and Brickus dished out six assists.
How It Happened
These two teams set the tone early in Saturday's game, the lead changing hands eight times and the teams tying four other times before halftime. La Salle took a 41-40 lead into the locker room, after a
Sam Brown layup at the buzzer was ruled good at first but correctly wiped off the board after a review. Both teams shot lights-out in the opening half, Penn at 57.7 percent (16-28) and La Salle exactly 50 percent (17-34).
Penn charged out of the locker room to score the first five points of the second half on a Perkins trey and a Slajchert floater in the lane, but La Salle steadied the ship and still held a 52-51 lead when Brantley put in a layup. However, Brown drained a trey, then Spinoso and Slajchert scored to answer a Jocius bucket. That was followed by a seven-point run—five of them from Spinoso—and suddenly Penn had its largest lead of the day at 65-57.
That lead held for a while, but at 79-71 Shepherd dunked off a Gill feed and then Vahlberg hit a trey after Penn turned it over breaking the Explorers' press. That made it 79-76 at the final media timeout, but out of break Perkins hit a stepback trey with the shot clock expiring. La Salle quickly came back with a dunk to keep it at 82-78, then after Perkins missed another late trey attempt Brickus hit two foul shots to make it a one-possession game (82-80) with 2:37 left.
Penn got good looks on consecutive possessions that didn't fall, and Brantley finally drew La Salle level when he hit both ends of a 1-and-1 to make the score 82-82 with 1:33 to play. Both teams had chances to take the lead but came up with empty possessions, giving Penn one final chance to end the game in regulation. With 6.3 seconds on the clock and 2 on the shot clock. Penn ran a great inbounds play but missed two chances at the rim and then another from distance in traffic. For the third time in two weeks, the Quakers were heading to overtime.
Perkins opened the OT scoring with two free throws, which Shepherd matched. Perkins scored again on a putback, answered by Gill. Both teams missed their next chances, and on a fast break Spinoso dunked home a Brown feed, only for Gill to slice right through the Penn defense to tie it a third time. Slajchert was then called for an offensive foul, and at the other end Shepherd followed his own miss to give La Salle its first lead since 52-51, a 90-88 advantage with 2:03 to play.
Penn called timeout, but out of the stoppage Brown missed a scoop layup and Spinoso was called for being in the cylinder on his putback attempt. The Quakers' defense stiffened, however, and La Salle was called for a shot clock violation with 1:18 left. Slajchert quickly went to work, draining a jumper to tie things at 90-90 as the clock went inside a minute.
Both teams missed their next shots, and when La Salle missed again Penn got the ball with a chance to play for the final shot. After a timeout, they inbounded to Slajchert, who held…and held…before driving his man to the rim and creating enough separation to score high off the glass. That seemed like it would be the winner, until Brantley improbably snatched the hero's cape from Slajchert's hands.
Up Next
Penn will host FDU-Florham on Wednesday night at The Palestra, tipping off with the Devils at 6 p.m. The Quakers will then be back at the Wells Fargo Center next Saturday to play No. 12 Kentucky. That game will tip at noon and air live on ESPN2.
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.
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