CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team completed a season sweep of Harvard for the second year in a row, taking an 80-72 win on Saturday at the Crimson's Lavietes Pavilion.
 
Penn led nearly wire-to-wire in the game and used an 8-0 run late in the game to pull away after Harvard got as close as 62-59 with 3:37 to play.
 
Penn has won five in a row and is now 14-11 overall; the Quakers are also one game out of first place in the Ivy League standings at 6-4. Harvard fell to 12-12 overall and 3-7 in Ivy play.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*The last time Penn won four in a row vs. Harvard was the end of a 12-game streak that started in 2002 and ended when the Quakers won the first of the two 2008 meetings.
 
*Penn has won five in a row overall, longest streak since a five-game streak last season.
 
*Penn forced Harvard to commit 19 turnovers, an opponent high for this season.
 
*Penn went 23-of-26 at the foul line; the 23 makes are a season high and most by a Quakers team since December 11, 2018 when they made 25 in a win over Villanova at The Palestra.
 
*Junior Jordan Dingle led all scorers with 25 points, his seventh straight game hitting the 20-point mark (25.0 ppg in that stretch) and the 20th time he has done it across his last 21 appearances.
 
*Dingle extended his double-figure scoring streak to 32 games, still the sixth-longest streak in program history.
 
*Dingle moved into 13th on Penn's all-time scoring list with 1,432 points, passing Mark Zoller (2004-07) on Saturday; Bruce Lefkowitz (1984-87) is 12th, with 1,443 points.
 
*Dingle went 9-of-9 at the foul line, tied for the best performance by a Penn player in the Steve Donahue coaching era at Penn; Dingle went 9-9 at Brown last season, while Clark Slajchert went 9-9 earlier this season against Saint Joseph's.
 
*Sophomore Nick Spinoso had 16 points on Saturday, giving him 28 in two meetings with Harvard on 14-of-19 shooting from the field; he also had six rebounds, a game-high four assists, and two steals.
 
*Sophomore George Smith finished with 12 points, giving him 26 in two meetings with Harvard this season and 48 across Penn's last four contests; he also had five rebounds and three assists.
 
*Junior Max Martz also had 12 points on Saturday, reaching double digits in the scoring column for the second straight game and the fourth time in five contests.
 
*Senior Lucas Monroe finished one point shy of his second double-double in as many games, with nine points and a game-high 10 rebounds (giving him 49 boards across Penn's last five games); he also had two assists, two blocked shots, and three steals.
 
*Harvard was led by Idan Tretout's 21 points, while Chris Ledlum scored 19 and Evan Nelson added 13.
 
How It Happened
Harvard picked up the game's first point on a free throw, but Spinoso answered back with a turnaround jumper in the paint to give the Quakers their first lead of the game. Off a strip, Dingle ramped up the Penn run to 5-2 following a long-range triple.
 
After the Crimson converted on a basket to trim the deficit to one point, the Quakers went on a 7-0 run, highlighted by a gorgeous feed from Slajchert to Martz underneath and two buckets from Dingle to take a 12-4 lead.
 
Harvard earned an edge over Penn through the next four minutes, trimming the Quaker lead back to eight points (21-13) at the 10:40 media timeout. The Crimson cut the deficit to just five points but Dingle answered back with a trey, increasing his point total to 13 with 10:48 on the clock.
 
Out of the break, Spinoso converted a layup to extend Penn's lead back to 10, but a 6-2 Harvard run got the Crimson back in the game, just down 25-19 with 6:24 to go. Nearly 30 seconds later, Martz drilled a three-pointer to put the Quakers back up by nine and made it a 10-point lead following a layup off the dish from Smith with 5:19 to play in the stanza.
 
Penn led by as many as 13 points with 4:01 to go after Monroe stripped Tretout and had a one-hand jam on the other end of the floor to extend the lead to 35-22. Harvard came back within nine points following jumpers from Tretout and Ledlum while the teams traded baskets over the next minute, the Crimson now trailing 39-31 with 1:37 to go.
 
Andrew Laczkowski used another terrific feed from Smith to extend Penn's lead back to 10 before the half, the Quakers leading 41-31.
 
Dingle had the Crimson's number in the first half, leading the Quakers with 18 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field. Spinoso added 10 while Martz had seven. Penn shot 44.4 percent (16-for-36) as a team from the field in the period while going a perfect 5-for-5 from the free throw line and holding Harvard to just 30 percent (3-for-10) from beyond-the-arc.
 
Coming out of the half, Spinoso put Penn on the scoreboard with a second-chance layup, making it 43-31. Harvard trimmed the Quaker lead back down to eight points following a layup and two made foul shots from Ledlum, but Spinoso sunk another shot to get Penn back up to double digits.
 
An 8-3 run capped off by a Nelson triple with 15:03 to go cut Penn's cushion back down to five points at 48-43, but Martz quickly responded with a triple of his own, ramping the lead back up to eight points with 14:44 remaining.
 
Smith continued his fine form with two straight buckets to put Penn up, 55-43 with 12:08 on the clock and while Luka Sakota hit a floater to bring it back to 10, Monroe had his second dunk of the day to make it a 12-point game again heading into the media timeout with 11:00 to go in regulation.
 
Coming out of the timeout, Spinoso increased his point total to 16 with a layup to give the Quakers a 59-45 advantage. Ledlum answered back with a second-chance layup to cut it back to 12 and that was all she wrote for over five minutes as the Crimson held Penn without a point for that timeframe. In the meantime, Harvard managed to bring it back to a six-point game until Smith nailed a triple to push Penn in front, 63-52.
 
A 6-0 Harvard run made it a one-possession game again, now trailing Penn, 62-59 with 3:37 to play. That was as close as the Crimson were able to get, though, as the Quakers went to the line the rest of the way and made their shots to prevail, 80-72.
 
Up Next
Penn is back at home for its next three games, starting next weekend when the Quakers host Yale on Friday at 7 p.m. and Brown on Saturday at 6 p.m. Friday's game will be Equality & Inclusion Night at The Palestra, and the game will air to a national audience on ESPNews.