PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team gets into the heart of the Ivy League schedule starting this weekend. The Ancient Eight calendar features traditional Friday/Saturday league weekends four of the next five weeks, and this Friday and Saturday the Quakers are in New England to battle Brown and Yale.
 
Both games will tip at 7 p.m., and both will air on ESPN+.
 
GAME 20 – PENN (9-10, 1-3 Ivy League) at BROWN (5-14, 1-3)
Friday, Feb. 2, 2024 | 7 p.m.
Providence, R.I. | Pizzitola Center
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Listen on QAN | Live Stats
 
GAME 21 – PENN at YALE (13-6, 4-0)
Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024 | 7 p.m.
New Haven, Conn. | John J. Lee Amphitheater
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Listen on QAN | Live Stats
 
Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Brown Game Notes (PDF) | Yale Game Notes (PDF)
 
Ivy League on ESPN+
A reminder that the Ivy League is paired with ESPN and you will be able to find all Penn home games, as well as road Ivy games and select non-conference road games, on ESPN+ again this season with the same high broadcast quality you've come to expect. ESPN+ is a subscription-based service that offers monthly and yearly packages. Click here to subscribe to ESPN+!
 
Quaker Audio Network (QAN)
Penn fans can listen to most of the 2023-24 Penn's men's basketball season through the Quaker Audio Network, a free Internet-based audio streaming service. Matt Leon will be on the play-by-play call this weekend, with Brad Fadem providing analysis. To access the Quaker Audio Network, simply type www.pennathletics.com/audio into your computer or device.
 
The Series with Brown
*Friday's meeting is the 143rd between the Quakers and the Bears, with Penn holding a 114-28 lead in the series.
 
*Penn has won five in a row and 10 of the last 11 meetings dating back to the 2016-17 season. That includes a sweep last season, when Penn won 76-68 here at Pizzitola Center and 90-69 at The Palestra in Philadelphia.
 
*Penn has won six in a row here at Pizzitola Sports Center.
 
The Series with Yale
*Saturday's meeting is the 239th between the Quakers and the Bulldogs, with Penn holding a 153-85 lead.
 
*These programs have split the regular-season series each of the last six seasons, with the home team winning each of the last 10 games after both teams won on the road in 2016-17.
 
*Last season, Yale won 70-63 here at the Lee Amphitheater and Penn won 66-64 at The Palestra.
 
Preseason Picks
In the Ivy League's preseason media poll, released on October 17, Penn was picked to finish fifth in the league while Brown was picked fourth and Yale was picked first (collecting 14 of the 16 first-place votes). The poll featured two media members from each of the eight schools, so 16 votes in total.
 
Weekly Honors For Perkins
Freshman Tyler Perkins was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week (for the second time in January) and Philadelphia Big 5 Player of the Week on Monday after his 25-point, 8-rebound performance last Saturday at Columbia.
 
Ivy Schedule Changes
The Ivy League has undergone some schedule changes from the last two years...
 
*Penn's MLK Day game at Cornell on January 15 came after two years of facing travel partner Princeton on that holiday.
 
*The schedule is backloaded to include four traditional "Ivy weekends" over a five-week span in February and March, starting this weekend. As a result, Penn played just four league games in the month of January this season.
 
*Balance continues to be an issue: Penn opened Ivy play at home (beating Dartmouth 80-51) and will close with three straight Ivy League home games in March. The Quakers are in the midst of playing four in a row and six of eight conference games on the road, with the two home games coming back-to-back on February 16-17. Taking it a step further, Penn will not play an Ivy League home game between January 20 and February 16, a span of 27 days.
 
Penn MBB by the Numbers
2 - Penn players with a double-double this season: junior Nick Spinoso—who has three after going for 12 points and 11 rebounds at Cornell—and freshman Tyler Perkins (24 pts/11 rbs vs. Bucknell). Spinoso flirted with a triple-double December 2 vs. La Salle with 17 points, eight rebounds and eight assists.
 
4 - Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors won by Penn players this season: freshman Sam Brown on December 18 and December 26, then Perkins on January 8 and again this past Monday.
 
4 - Non-conference opponents who were ranked in the AP Top 25 poll at the time Penn played them: Villanova (#21 on November 13), Kentucky (#16 on December 9), Houston (#3 on December 30) and Auburn (#25 on January 2). The last time Penn played four non-conference games against ranked opponents was 1994-95.
 
4 - Overtime games played by Penn already this season, the Quakers going 1-3 in those contests. Only three teams in program history have played more—1983-84 (6), 2010-11 (5), 2018-19 (5)—and so far this season only Kansas State (with five) has played more among Division I programs.
 
5 - 20-point games put up by Perkins so far this season; the last freshman with that many such games was last year's Ivy League Player of the Year, Jordan Dingle, who had five in 2019-20 when he was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year. The last freshman with six such games? Tyler Bernardini in 2007-08.
 
6 - Minutes played by Clark Slajchert before he injured his ankle in Penn's loss at No. 3 Houston on December 30; the Ivy League's fourth-leading scorer has not played since then.
 
11 - Penn players with at least one double-figure scoring game this season; among Division I programs, only Texas State (12) has more. Penn's list includes four players with at least one 20-point game (Slajchert 5, Perkins 5, Spinoso 1, Brown 1).
 
11 - Consecutive games in which Penn started four left-handers (Spinoso, Brown, Perkins, junior George Smith); that streak ended last Saturday when junior Reese McMullen replaced Smith in the lineup at Columbia.
 
14 - Three-point shots hit by freshman Niklas Polonowski over the last six games for 42 of his 44 points in that stretch (7.3 ppg)—two each against Houston, Cornell, Harvard and Columbia, three against Auburn and Dartmouth; 20 of his 23 field goals this season, including 17 of the last 18, have come from beyond the arc.
 
23 - Points scored by junior Ed Holland III in Penn's last two games (8 vs. Harvard, 15 at Columbia which is a career high vs. a D1 opponent); that's more than he had across the Quakers' previous 12 contests (22).
 
27 - Days between Ivy League home games, as Penn is in the midst of playing four road games across three weekends.
 
29 - Points scored by McMullen in Penn's four Ivy games, led by a career-high 15 at Cornell on January 15; that's more than he totaled across the Quakers' 15 non-conference games (23).
 
38.2 - Penn's overall 3-point FG percentage this season, tops among Ivy League teams; the Quakers have hit double figures in 3FG three of the last five games, five times in the last eight, and eight times in the last 12.
 
40 - Of senior Andrew Laczkowski's 63 rebounds this season, 40 of them (63.5 pct.) have come on the offensive glass.
 
48.7 - Percentage of Penn's points (191 of 392) scored by freshmen in the six games since Slajchert got hurt (yes, we're counting Houston)—Perkins with 86, Brown with 61, and Polonowski 44.
 
131 - Three-point baskets made by Penn over its last 12 games (10.9 per game); the Quakers average 9.9 3FG per game overall, third among Ivy teams behind Cornell (10.3) and Princeton (10.2).