AUBURN, Ala. – Playing its first game without leading scorer Clark Slajchert—who sat out due to an injury suffered early in Saturday's loss at #3 Houston—the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team was hit by a barrage of three-pointers early and never recovered Tuesday night at #25 Auburn, falling 88-68 at Neville Arena.
 
The Tigers made their first three and seven of their first 10 three-point shots on Tuesday night, building up as much as a 20-point lead in the first half. The Quakers got back to within single digits in the second half, but another Auburn run kept Penn at bay.
 
Penn ends non-conference play with an 8-7 mark, while Auburn—which cracked the Associated Press Top 25 on Monday at No. 25—improved to 11-2.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Ironically, Penn ended up shooting a better percentage from beyond the arc than the Tigers, Penn's 10-of-28 (35.7 pct) bettering Auburn's 12-of-35 (34.3 pct) effort.
 
*Freshman Sam Brown led the Quakers' offense as he scored 20 points, a season/career high. The freshman was 4-of-6 from beyond the are, 7-of-9 overall on FG, and scored 16 of his points in the second half.
 
*Freshman Tyler Perkins was Penn's only other player to hit double digits in the scoring column, with 13 points. He has hit double figures in four of the last five and eight of the last 10 games.
 
*Yet another freshman, Niklas Polonowski, hit a trio of treys to finish with nine points, his high against a Division I opponent. He also had three rebounds and an assist.
 
*Junior Nick Spinoso stuffed the stat sheet with eight points, seven rebounds, six assists—which tied for game-high honors—a steal and a blocked shot.
 
*Senior Andrew Laczkowski got the start in Slajchert's place and ended the night with seven points, three rebounds (all on the offensive glass), and a steal.
 
*Auburn was led by Johni Broome, who was a monster with 24 points, 12 rebounds, three blocked shots, two assists and two steals. Chad Baker-Mazara added 16 points, while Denver Jones had 12 and K.D. Johnson scored 11. Aden Holloway dished out six assists to tie Spinoso for game-high honors.

How It Happened
Auburn set the tone early, knocking down their first three three-point shots in taking an 11-2 lead. Penn got back within 13-9 when George Smith stole the ball at one end and converted a layup at the other. However, the Quakers went nearly four minutes without a point after that and Auburn took advantage, scoring 11 in a row to go up 24-9. Polonowski ended the skid with a trey, but the Tigers' lead slowly grew from there and was 19 at the half (51-32).
 
Penn opened the second half with a 16-6 run and got within 57-48 when Polonowski hit his third trey of the night with a little more than 14 minutes left. Auburn came right back with a trey, however, and that was the start of a 9-1 Tigers run that extended their lead to 66-49 and forced Penn coach Steve Donahue to take a timeout.
 
Once again, Auburn steadily built its lead until it was 76-52 with 8:34 to play, at which point Penn scored eight straight points as Spinoso put back his own miss, then Laczkowski and Brown hit back-to-back treys. That made the score 76-60 at under-8 media timeout.
 
Auburn came out of the stoppage with the next five points to get its lead back over 20 and essentially traded points with the Quakers the rest of the way over the game's final five minutes.
 
Up Next
Penn gets into Ivy League play on Saturday, hosting Dartmouth at The Palestra at 2 p.m.
 
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.