PHILADELPHIA – A back-and-forth affair turned into what became the fourth straight victory for the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team, which topped Cornell, 92-86, Saturday evening in a highly entertaining Ivy League battle at The Palestra.
 
The lead changed 10 times, with players on both sides making big plays throughout the high-scoring contest. However, the Quakers ended up on top to improve to 13-11 overall with a 5-4 record in Ivy play. The Big Red, which entered the weekend tied for first place in the league standings with Princeton, dropped to 15-7 with an identical Ivy mark of 5-4 after being swept by the Tigers and Quakers.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn swept the 63rd Columbia-Cornell Ivy home weekend for the 46th time.
 
*This was Penn's highest point total against an NCAA Division 1 opponent since a 95-79 win over Long Beach State at the Wooden Legacy on December 1, 2019.

*The last time Penn scored 92 points in an Ivy League game was February 8, 2019, a 92-82 win at Brown.
 
*Penn had five players reach double figures in the scoring column, a first this season.

*Penn set a season high with 48 rebounds and outboarded the Big Red, 48-37; for the weekend, the Quakers were +27 on the glass against Columbia and Cornell.
 
*Penn tied a season high against NCAA D1 competition with 21 assists.
 
*Penn shot 51.7 percent from the field, the sixth time this season the Quakers have hit at least half of their field goals in a game.
 
*Penn hit 11 three-pointers, the 11th time the Quakers have reached double figures in that category this season and the fourth time in the last five games.
 
*Penn took 32 free throws on Saturday night, the second straight game in which the Quakers set a season high in that category.
 
*Junior Jordan Dingle once again led Penn in scoring, with 27 points; it was his sixth straight 20-point game and his 19th in his last 20 appearances.
 
*Dingle finished the weekend with 52 points, most by a Penn player in an Ivy weekend since AJ Brodeur scored 59 across the Dartmouth/Harvard weekend on February 15-16, 2019.
 
*Dingle's 19 20-point games this season is tied for second-most in program history with Stan Pawlak, who accomplished the feat in 1965-66. Ernie Beck holds the record, with 25 such games in 1952-53.
 
*Dingle has 40 20-point games in his career, fourth all-time behind Beck (54), Keven McDonald (43), and Pawlak (42).
 
*Dingle's double-figure scoring streak is now at 31 games, the sixth-longest streak in program history; Brodeur is fifth, with 34 such games in a row.
 
*Dingle passed Bob Morse (1970-72) and Miles Cartwright (2011-14) and is now 14th on Penn's all-time scoring list with 1,407 points; Mark Zoller (2004-07) is 13th, with 1,429 points, while Bruce Lefkowitz (1984-87) is 12th with 1,443.
 
*Senior Lucas Monroe once again was all over the place on Saturday, collecting his second collegiate double-double (his first against D1 competition) with 12 points and a game-high 13 rebounds.
 
*Monroe also matched his season/career high with five assists.
 
*Junior Max Martz scored 13 points and added eight rebounds; he has reached double figures in scoring in three of the last four games (13.8 ppg in that stretch).
 
*Junior Clark Slajchert also had 13 points, his first double-figure scoring game since he had 15 at Cornell on January 6.
 
*Sophomore Nick Spinoso was the other double-figure scorer, with 10 points; he also had a game-high six assists and five rebounds.
 
*Sophomore George Smith scored eight points—going 3-of-3 from the field including a pair of treys—giving him 36 points over Penn's last three games (12.0 ppg).
 
*Cornell was led by senior Greg Dolan, who led all scorers with 29 points and added four assists and five rebounds. Chris Manon and Max Watson added 13 points each, while Guy Ragland Jr. scored 11. As a team, Cornell took 42 three-point shots on Saturday which is an opponent high in the Steve Donahue coaching era at Penn.
 
How It Happened
Penn struck first on Saturday night, a bucket courtesy of Spinoso off the feed from Dingle. A layup and a foul for Monroe allowed the Quakers to get out to a 6-2 lead in the first three minutes of play. From that point, Cornell went on a 6-2 push of its own to go ahead, 8-6, before a Slajchert trey pushed Penn back into a 9-8 lead at the first media timeout.
 
Coming out of the timeout, both teams traded blows with Dingle and Jonah Charles knocking down triples as Penn held a 19-14 advantage with 10:59 to go. Dingle increased his point total to 10 with a three-pointer to extend the Quaker lead to 22-14 with 10:28 remaining on the clock. A 7-1 Big Red run over the next three minutes and change cut the Penn lead to just 23-21 with 7:32 left in the first half.
 
Cornell figured out the Quakers defense over the next 2:30, turning the tables for a 12-0 run to take a 31-23 lead with 5:37 left, causing Penn head coach Steve Donahue to use his use-it-or-lose-it timeout. The message from Coach Donahue seemed to have paid off as Penn flipped the game back into its favor, going on an 8-2 push—thanks to two free throws and a jumper from Martz—to cut the Big Red advantage to just two points, 33-31, with 3:10 to play.
 
It was a rock fight over the final three minutes of action in the first half as Penn re-took the lead, 40-39, following a putback from Max Lorca-Lloyd off the steal and eventual miss from Slajchert. Dingle had the half's final gasp, beating the buzzer with a jumper to send the Quakers into the locker room with a 42-40 edge.
 
Penn extended its lead to as many as five points early in the second after Martz broke Marcus Filien's ankles, taking a 50-45 lead. A 5-2 run for Cornell cut the Penn lead back to two points at 52-50 at the second half's first media timeout.

The Big Red jumped back in front, 56-55, following a 6-0 run off three consecutive Quaker turnovers, as Donahue took a 30-second breather. Penn ended the drought following two consecutive buckets from Smith and Slajchert (off a long feed from Monroe). Cornell knocked down back-to-back treys to take a 62-59 lead, but Penn answered right back with one from Smith to tie the game at 62-62 with 10:58 left.
 
Following the media timeout, the Quakers took immediate action following Smith's triple to extend the run to 8-0 and jump in front, 67-62. Leading scorers Greg Dolan and Dingle traded buckets before the under-8 media timeout as the latter nailed a triple from the right wing to run the Penn lead back up to eight, before Dolan trimmed the deficit back to six, 74-68, with 7:44 remaining.
 
Cornell and Penn alternated successful possessions over nearly the next four minutes, as the Quakers continued to cling to a slim, 80-75 advantage at the final media timeout. The Big Red drew closer, two points to be exact, as Keller Boothby drilled a three-pointer with 3:08 left, closing the gap to 80-78.
 
The Red and Blue created a little bit of breathing room, scoring five unanswered points off a crafty Dingle layup and a Monroe dunk over 1:16 to lead 85-78 with 1:53 to play.
 
With 1:02 left and a three-point lead, Martz knocked down an off-balance fadeaway mid-range jumper as the shot clock expired to push the edge to back to five. Cornell answered on a Manon layup and a trip to the line, making it 87-84. Dingle headed to the line to sink both foul shots and lift Penn back up by five, but a Dolan layup brought Cornell back to within three points at 89-86 with 36 seconds on the clock.
 
The Big Red ended up needing to foul Penn for the remainder of the game, allowing the Quakers to get four in a row to end the contest.
 
Up Next
Penn will take its four-game win streak into its first road contest of February, visiting Beantown on Saturday to take on Harvard at 2 p.m.