PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team opened Ivy League play in style on Saturday, the Quakers using a scintillating first half of shooting to put away Dartmouth early. The final score was 80-51 at The Palestra.
 
Penn used a first-half barrage from beyond the arc, hitting 10 of its first 13 shots from distance in establishing as much as a 29-point lead before halftime. The second half wasn't nearly as pretty, but Dartmouth went more than nine minutes without a field goal and that allowed the Quakers to cruise to the win.
 
Penn snapped a modest two-game losing streak and improved to 9-7, while Dartmouth fell to 4-10. Saturday's game was the Ivy League opener for both teams, with Penn winning its first Ivy League game for the third straight season.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*This was Penn's largest win margin of the season against a Division I opponent and its largest in an Ivy League game since an 84-55 win last season at Columbia.

*The last time Penn opened Ivy play with this big a victory margin was 2005-06, when the Quakers hosted Cornell and Columbia on the first Ivy weekend and beat the Big Red 84-44 and the Lions 87-55.

*Penn's 47-point first half was its best against a Division I opponent this season, as were the Quakers' 14 three-point baskets and their 56-percent shooting performance from beyond the arc.

*On the flip side, Dartmouth's 51 points were the fewest by an Ivy League opponent against Penn since February 1, 2020 when (you guessed it) the Big Green had just 46 in a 54-46 loss to the Quakers.
 
*Penn outrebounded Dartmouth on Saturday, 39-27.
 
*Penn had just nine turnovers, one shy of its season low.

*Penn improved to 8-1 at The Palestra this season, 9-0 when leading at halftime, and 7-0 when shooting a better field-goal percentage than its opponent.
 
*Penn knocked down 14 three-point shots on the day and shot 56.0 percent from beyond the arc; you only have to go back to last season to find the last time the Quakers shot that well from distance, as they were 15-of-23 (65.2 pct) in the aforementioned win at Columbia. 
 
*Freshman Tyler Perkins scored 19 points, all of them coming in the first half as he went 7-10 from the field including a 5-7 performance beyond the arc in the opening 20; the five treys are a season high.
 
*Senior Andrew Laczkowski had his first double-figure scoring game of the season with 10 points, going 4-6 from the field and grabbing three offensive rebounds among his six boards.
 
*Junior Reese McMullen was Penn's other double-figure scorer, also with 10 points, and he also had five rebounds; both are season/career highs.

*Laczkowski and McMullen became the tenth and 11th different Penn players to record a double-figure scoring game this season.
 
*Junior Nick Spinoso finished the day with nine points, six rebounds and three assists.
 
*Freshman Niklas Polonowski knocked down a trio of threes for his nine points, giving him 18 points on six treys over Penn's last two games.
 
*Sophomore Johnnie Walter doubled his three-point output for the season with two of them on Saturday, finishing with seven points which was one shy of his season/career high.

*Junior George Smith led all players with three steals, his season high.
 
*Dartmouth got 17 points from Ryan Cornish and 13 from Jayden Williams.

How It Happened
Penn established itself early, scoring the game's first four points and then using a 10-point run after Dartmouth came back to tie it at 4-4. The Big Green got back within six, at 15-9, but Perkins knocked down three treys in a row as part of an 11-3 run that pushed the Quakers out to a 14-point lead at 26-12. A Jaren Johnson bucket in the paint ended Dartmouth's skid, but Penn answered with a 12-point streak that included treys from Perkins, Brown and McMullen. The lead peaked at 29, 46-17, before the Big Green scored seven of the last eight points of the half to get it to 47-24 by the break.

How about this for offense: with the score tied, 4-4, Polonowski hit a three and Ed Holland III scored in the paint to make it 9-4. Polonowski missed his next shot, a three-pointer, but then from the 12:19 mark of the first half to the 2:37 mark Penn hit 13 straight field goals with nine of them coming from distance. By the time Perkins ended the streak with a missed trey, Penn's lead was 46-20.
 
It was 50-27 when Dartmouth scored six in a row to force a Penn timeout, Jackson Munro's three-pointer making it a 17-point game with 15:15:37. However, the Big Green went more than nine minutes without a field goal after that—and while Penn didn't exactly establish itself offensively, the Quakers did enough to cruise comfortably to the victory
 
Up Next
Penn is off until Monday, Jan. 15 (MLK Day) when the Quakers travel to Ithaca to face Cornell. Tipoff with the Big Red is slated for 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.