PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team is back at the Wells Fargo Center for the second Saturday in a row this weekend, facing Kentucky in a neutral-site game that represents a homecoming of sorts for Wildcats Justin Edwards, DJ Wagner, and Kareem Watkins.
 
Saturday's game will air nationally on ESPN2 and is scheduled to tip off at noon.
 
GAME 11 – PENN (6-4) vs. #16/17 KENTUCKY (6-2)
Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023 | Noon
Wells Fargo Center | Philadelphia
Watch Live on ESPN2 ($) | Listen Live on QAN | Live Stats | Tickets
Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Kentucky Game Notes (PDF)
 
Quaker Audio Network (QAN)
Penn fans can listen to most of the 2023-24 Penn's men's basketball season through the Quaker Audio Network, a free Internet-based audio streaming service. Matt Leon will be on the play-by-play call Saturday, with Brad Fadem and Vince Curran providing analysis. To access the Quaker Audio Network, simply type www.pennathletics.com/audio into your computer or device.
 
The Series with Kentucky
*Saturday's game will represent just the sixth meeting between the teams, with UK having won the previous five.
  12/9/1967 - at Kentucky 64, Penn 49
  12/14/68 - Kentucky 102, at Penn 78
  11/24/90 - at Kentucky 85, Penn 62
  11/27/99 - at Kentucky 67, Penn 50
  1/3/2011 - at Kentucky 86, Penn 62
 
*This is also a matchup of two of the winningest programs in NCAA Division I history; Kentucky entered the 2023-24 season with 2,375 wins, second on the all-time list behind only Kansas, while Penn was 22nd with 1,835.
 
*The Wildcats moved to 16th in the Associated Press (AP) national poll on Monday. Penn is 1-3 all-time against teams ranked 16th, the lone win coming the first time the Quakers faced a 16th-ranked team.
  1/25/1975 - Penn 66, at #16 Providence 65
  12/18/81 - #16 Oregon State 102, Penn 64
  11/28/89 - #16 Temple 55, at Penn 54
  12/28/2015 - at #16 Villanova 77, Penn 57
 
*Penn is 7-19 all-time against the programs that currently constitute the Southeastern Conference; the Quakers will face another SEC foe in less than a month when they ring in the new year at Auburn (and former Quaker standout Ira Bowman, currently an assistant coach with the Tigers).
 
*Penn's last win against an SEC team came in the 2019-20 season opener, when the Red and Blue went to Tuscaloosa and beat Alabama in Nate Oats' first game as the Crimson Tide's head coach, 81-80.
 
Ivy Honors For Slajchert
Following his 33-point performance against La Salle last Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center, senior Clark Slajchert was named co-Ivy League Player of the Week along with Princeton's Caden Pierce on Monday. It was Slajchert's first Ivy honor this season and the fifth of his career. The weekend before, Slajchert was named to the all-tournament team at the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic along with freshman Tyler Perkins.
 
Penn MBB by the Numbers
2 - Games played by Penn prior to this season at what is now the Wells Fargo Center—a number the Quakers will double this week after playing La Salle in the Big 5 Classic last Saturday and then Kentucky this Saturday. The Quakers split a pair of games with Villanova back when it was called the First Union Center, losing 80-51 on February 6, 2001 and winning 72-58 on December 10, 2003.
 
2 - Non-conference opponents who are ranked in this week's Associated Press (AP) National Poll: in addition to the Wildcats this Saturday, Penn will face No. 3 Houston on December 30.
 
2 - Penn players who have collected a double-double this season: freshman Tyler Perkins (24 pts/11 rbs vs. Bucknell) and junior Nick Spinoso (11 pts/11 rbs at UMES). Spinoso flirted with a triple-double in last Saturday's game vs. the Explorers with 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
 
3 - Overtime games played by Penn already this season: at UMES, against Belmont in the Cathedral of College Basketball Classic, and last Saturday against La Salle at the Big 5 Classic.
 
4 - 20-point games racked up by Perkins already this season; the last freshman with that many such games was Jordan Dingle, who had five in 2019-20.
 
5 - Ivy League weekly honors accumulated by senior Clark Slajchert over his career, after he was named co-Ivy League Player of the Week on Monday with Princeton's Caden Pierce.
 
9 - Double-figure scoring games by Slajchert this season; in the outlier game, a win over Monmouth on November 26, he was "held" to nine points (on a trio of treys).
 
21 - Three-point baskets made by Penn in Wednesday's win over Division III FDU-Florham, a program record; the Quakers shot 21-34 (61.8 pct) beyond the arc, and nine different players hit treys in the game—one shy of the NCAA Division I record the Quakers set against Delaware State on December 27, 2017.
 
25 - Of senior Andrew Laczkowski's 37 rebounds this season, 25 (or 67.6 percent) of them have come on the offensive glass.
 
30 - Of Penn's 39 first-half points in its win over Monmouth, 30 of them were scored by freshmen (14 by Sam Brown, 6 by Augustus Gerhart, 5 each by Perkins and Niklas Polonowski).
 
42 - Turnovers committed by Penn over the last five games; the Quakers averaged 16.0 turnovers per game across their first five games but have nearly cut that in half over the last five contests (8.4 tpg).
 
44 - Rebounds snared by Spinoso over the last five games against Division I opponents (8.8 rpg); the junior had averaged 6.3 rebounds per game across the Quakers' first four contests.
 
55.8 - Penn's overall FG percentage in its last three games, wins over Monmouth (30-60, .500) and FDU-Florham (39-62, .629) sandwiched around last Saturday's loss to La Salle (37-68, .544); of particular note, the Quakers are 45-84 (53.6 percent) from three-point land during that stretch.
 
67 - Points scored by Brown through six games this season; he missed Penn's first four contests due to injury but has started the last four games and shot 50 percent on 3FG to date (16-of-32).
 
+82 - Penn's rebound advantage through ten games this season (397-315); the Quakers have outboarded eight of their ten opponents so far this season including a 52-22 (+30) advantage against Bucknell, their largest margin against a Division 1 opponent since going +37 in a win over Columbia on February 2, 1974 (65-28).
 
91 - Points scored by Slajchert in the three games Penn has played away from The Palestra; he had 27 on November 10 at Saint Joseph's, 31 a week later at UMES, and 33 last Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center against La Salle.