PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team struggled all day with a pesky Dartmouth team, but in a game that featured high-octane offense on both ends the Quakers were able to put away the Big Green, 89-79.
With the win, Penn improved to 9-4 in Ivy League play and remained tied atop the Ivy standings with Princeton, a 58-56 winner at Harvard on Saturday afternoon. The Quakers and Tigers are now set up to meet in the season finale next Saturday at noon, with the winner earning at least a share of the regular-season title. Yale also is 9-4 after a 76-58 win over Cornell on Saturday night, and the Bulldogs have a trip to Brown next Saturday still in the offing.
Penn has won eight games in a row, seven of them in league play, and is 17-11 overall. Dartmouth fell to 9-18 and was eliminated from Ivy League Tournament eligibility with a 5-8 Ivy mark.
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn's eight-game winning streak is its longest since the 2006-07 squad ended the regular season with 10 wins in a row.
*Penn's seven-game win streak in Ivy play is its longest since the 2017-18 squad started league play 7-0 on the way to a 12-2 mark and a share of the regular-season title with Harvard.
*Penn shot 61.5 percent from the field on Saturday, the best shooting game in the
Steve Donahue coaching era at Penn; the last time the Quakers shot better was February 4, 2011 when they shot 62.8 percent (27-43) against…Dartmouth.
*Penn has shot exactly 60 percent from the field over the last two games (69-115).
*Penn also had its second-best shooting day at the foul line this season, going 17 of 18 (94.4 percent); the only better performance came at Missouri, when the Quakers went a perfect 11-of-11 (on 11/11, no less).
*Penn tied a season high with nine steals and won the points-off-turnover battle, 16-8.
*Penn outrebounded Dartmouth, 28-21, the ninth straight game the Quakers have outboarded their opponent.
*Junior
Jordan Dingle had another massive day offensively, scoring 27 points; he shot 8-of-14 from the field, making four three-pointers, and was 7-of-8 at the foul line.
*This was Dingle's 21st 20-point game this season—second-most in program history, behind Ernie Beck's 25 in 1952-53—and the 42nd of his career, tying him with Stan Pawlak for third on Penn's all-time list behind Beck (54) and Keven McDonald (43).
*Dingle's double-figure scoring streak was extended to 35 games, putting him alone in fifth place; McDonald is fourth, at 38 straight games.
*Dingle also moved into the Top 10 on Penn's all-time scoring list, his final point giving him 1,489 and pushing him past Jerome Allen's 1,488 from 1992-95 for tenth place.
*Junior
Max Martz scored 18 points for the second straight game on Saturday, going 7-of-11 from the field. He also tied a career high with two blocked shots and a season best with three assists.
*Junior
Clark Slajchert scored 17 points, giving him 49 across Penn's last three contests (16.3 ppg).
*Senior
Lucas Monroe posted his second double-double in five games, with 13 points and 10 rebounds; he has now hit double digits on the boards in four times in Penn's last seven contests.
*Sophomore
Nick Spinoso was limited with foul trouble on Saturday but finished with eight points, six rebounds, and a team-high four assists.
*Dartmouth lost on a day when it shot 52.7 percent from the field and made 13 three-pointers.
*The Big Green was led by Dame Adelekun, who scored 24 points and added nine rebounds and five assists (with just one turnover). Dusan Neskovic added 12 points, Cam Krystowiak had 11, and Ryan Cornish finished Saturday's game with 10 points and five assists.
How It Happened
Penn started its four seniors (Monroe,
Jonah Charles,
Max Lorca-Lloyd,
Michael Moshkovitz) along with Dingle, and the group certainly got the Quakers off to a rollicking start. The Red and Blue hit their first nine shots of the game, building up a 20-12 lead.
In an early sign of how the game would go all day, Dartmouth took the punch and didn't go down. Instead, the Big Green got back within a point, at 26-25, when Neskovic drained a three-pointer with just over eight minutes to play. Both teams had empty possessions after that, before Monroe scored in the paint and
George Smith got a steal in the open court for an easy layup. That made it 30-25, and when Dingle completed an and-1 three-point play the run was 7-0 and Penn's lead was back up to eight.
The lead grew to as large as 14, a Slajchert trey making the score 46-32 with just 1:40 left in the first half. However, Dartmouth again got off the mat, scoring eight of last 10 points before the break. Penn took a 48-40 lead into the locker room.
If you were a Penn fan, you had to be concerned that the Quakers' lead was only eight despite the team shooting a staggering 69 percent from the field (20-29). The Big Green used the three-point shot as the equalizer, though, draining nine in the period.
Adelekun, who closed the first-half scoring, then opened the second half with another bucket to make it 48-42, but Martz and Dingle combined for the next four points to get Penn's lead back to double digits. It eventually grew to 12 (64-52) after a pair of Slajchert free throws, but Dartmouth again came back. This time it was a 9-0 run, a Cornish bucket making the score 64-61 and forcing Coach Donahue to take a timeout with 9:19 left.
The break served its purpose. Penn got Martz on the block for a conversion, and then a Dartmouth turnover turned into a Spinoso bucket. Another Big Green turnover brought the teams out of the under-8 media timeout, and out of that stoppage Martz drained a three-pointer. Suddenly, Penn's lead was back at 10 with 7:40 left, 71-61.
The lead was still 10 with 4:09 to play when Dartmouth's Adelekun made its final stand. The Big Green center scored back-to-back buckets to get his team within six, then answered a Monroe basket with a three-point play that made it a five-point game with 2:39 left. Martz hit both sides of a 1-and-1 with 2:21 left, but once again Adelekun had the answer to make it 83-78 as the clock went inside two minutes.
Spinoso scored on Penn's next possession, putting back his own missed layup with a nice second-chance effort to give the Quakers a seven-point lead with 1:41 to play. Both teams had empty possessions after that as the clock hit its final minute, and then Dingle was stripped as he started a drive. Slajchert fouled Cornish on the fast break at the other end, and the Big Green sophomore split his two shots with 36 seconds left. Dartmouth was forced to foul after that, and Dingle made all four of his shots to close things out.
Up Next
The Penn-Princeton game next Saturday will be televised live nationally on ESPNews.
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