PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team evened its record at the Cathedral Classic Invitational presented by Toyota on Saturday evening, defeating Maine 77-64 at The Palestra.
Simply put, the Quakers made the plays down the stretch—at both ends. This was a one-point game (58-57) with less than six minutes to play, but the Red and Blue held the Black Bears scoreless for more than three minutes and went on a 10-0 run in that stretch on the way to victory.
Penn improved to 3-4 overall with the victory, while Maine fell to 4-4 and is also 1-1 on the weekend. This was the first meeting between the Quakers and the Black Bears.
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn outrebounded Maine, 39-21.
*Penn shot 21-of-24 from the foul line, a season-best 87.5 percent.
*Junior
Ethan Roberts was Penn's leading scorer for the second straight night, with 23 points, and had 10 rebounds in collecting his second double-double of the season. Roberts truly stuffed the stat sheet on Saturday, adding four assists and three steals.
*Senior
Nick Spinoso also had an outstanding performance, flirting with just the second triple-double in program history as he finished with 14 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. Spinoso also had two steals.
*Sophomore
Sam Brown got to the line 14 times on Saturday and made 13 of them, a Penn player high in the
Steve Donahue era. He finished the night with 19 points to go with four rebounds.
*Junior
Dylan Williams was Penn's fourth double-figure scorer, with 12 points.
*Junior
Johnnie Walter matched his season high with six rebounds.
*Freshman
Michelangelo Oberti made his first collegiate start and played 17 minutes.
*Maine got 15 points from Kellen Tynes and 13 each from Quion Burns and A.J. Lopez. Tynes also led the Black Bears in assists (6) and steals (3), while Burns topped the team with four rebounds and Jaden Clayton dished out five assists.
How It Happened
Penn used a pair of runs early to establish itself, the first a 6-0 run that turned a 10-8 deficit into a 14-10 lead and the second an eight-point streak that left the Quakers up, 24-15. Maine scored on its next three possessions to get back within three, but a 10-2 Penn run pushed its lead to double digits at 36-25. The margin was six at the break, 41-35, as the Red and Blue had its most prolific first half of scoring this season.
Maine scored the first four points of the second half and nine of the first 13, and the Black Bears finally tied things up at 49-49 when Burns hit his only three-pointer of the night. Only eight points were scored over the next six minutes, four by each team, before Brown hit a pair of free throws and Spinoso followed with his own freebie. Freshman
AJ Levine then put back a missed Roberts trey, and Penn's lead was 58-55 at the under-8 media timeout with 6:55 left.
Burns scored to make the score 58-57 out of the stoppage, but Maine would go scoreless for the next 3:31 of game time and Penn took advantage.
George Smith started the run with a three-pointer out of the left corner, and then after Brown put four points on the board at the charity stripe Williams buried a trey from right in front of the Penn bench. That pushed the Quakers' lead back into double digits, at 68-57, with 3:37 to play.
Maine fought back, getting as close as six with 1:29 left when Lopez converted a conventional three-point play. However, those would be the Black Bears' last points of the night as Penn scored the final seven points to set the final score.
Up Next
Penn closes out Cathedral Classic Invitational presented by Toyota play on Sunday, hosting Elon at 2:30 p.m. following the Navy-Maine tilt at noon. The Phoenix also are 1-1 so far this weekend, falling to the Black Bears on Friday but defeating the Midshipmen on Saturday.
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.
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