PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team hosted the Ivy League-leading Yale Bulldogs on Friday night, and the Quakers were done in by Bulldog runs late in the first half and again early in the second on the way to a 76-62 loss at The Palestra.
 
Penn fell to 9-14 overall and is 1-7 in Ivy League play, while Yale remained undefeated in Ivy play (8-0) and improved to 17-6 overall.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*This marked the first time in the last 12 regular-season meetings between these programs that the visiting team won. Yale hadn't won at The Palestra since the 2017 season.

*Penn lost on a night when it dished out 16 assists on its 23 baskets and committed just four turnovers, a program low in the Steve Donahue coaching era.

*In fact, the last time the Quakers committed four or fewer turnovers in a game was December 22, 2010 when they had four in a 78-68 win over Delaware.
 
*Senior Clark Slajchert led the Quakers' scoring parade, knocking down 12 points and adding five rebounds (one shy of his season high).
 
*Freshman Tyler Perkins scored 11 points, all in the first half; it's his 17th double-figure scoring game this season, a team high.
 
*Freshman Sam Brown also had 11 points and added three assists.
 
*Junior Nick Spinoso scored just two points but tied for game-high honors with six assists while committing just two turnovers.
 
*Junior George Smith finished with his fourth straight eight-point game, joining Slajchert and Brown in knocking down a pair of three-point shots.

*Freshman Augustus Gerhart dished out three assists, a season/career high.
 
*Yale got a double-double from Danny Wolf (14 points/10 rebounds) and was led offensively by Bez Mbeng, who had 16 points and dished out six assists without a turnover. John Poulakidas led all scorers with 17 points, while August Mahoney added 11.

How It Happened
Early returns were promising at The Palestra on Friday night, as a pair of Ed Holland III layups bookended an 8-0 run that turned a 7-7 tie into an eight-point Penn lead.
 
Yale was unfazed, and needed less than two minutes to reel off nine straight points and grab a 16-15 lead when Mahoney knocked down a triple. That forced the Quakers to take a timeout. The stoppage paid off, Brown hitting a trio of foul shots and Slajchert floating home a jumper to put Penn in front, 20-16. An Andrew Laczkowski layup made it 22-18 with 9:45 left in the half.
 
It was all Yale after that. The Bulldogs ran off nine points in a row, the run covering just 1:09 of game time, and then when Perkins ended the run they simply scored 12 more in a row as the Red and Blue went ice cold on offense. By the time Slajchert finally converted another floater, it was only Penn's second field goal in seven minutes of action and Yale's lead was 13, 39-26.
 
The Ivy leaders expanded the advantage to 17 before the break and took a 45-30 lead into the locker room.
 
Two Smith three-pointers got Penn within 47-36 early in the second half, but Yale then ripped off the next 10 points—the run covering less than two minutes—to go up by 21 at the under-16 media timeout, 57-36.
 
Penn never seriously threatened again after that, getting no closer than 14 points until there were less than 90 seconds left in the contest and a Johnnie Walter three-pointer made the deficit 12 (74-62).
 
Up Next
Penn concludes this traditional Ivy weekend tomorrow night with Brown here at The Palestra. The Quakers and Bears—who fell to 2-6 in Ivy play with a 72-63 loss at Princeton on Friday night—are scheduled to tip off at 6 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.