PHILADELPHIA – Searching for its first Ivy League victory of the season, the University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team hits the road for the first time during conference play to take on Cornell Saturday at 1 p.m. before heading back home for a Monday matinee vs. Harvard at 2 p.m.
 
The Quakers are currently tied with Cornell and Yale for sixth place in the Ancient Eight standings after falling to Columbia and Dartmouth to open Ivy action, while the Big Red are looking for their first win and the Crimson try to rebound after falling to Princeton last weekend at the buzzer.
 
GAME 16 – Penn (9-6, 0-2 Ivy) at Cornell (4-11, 0-2 Ivy)
Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025 | 1 p.m.
Newman Arena at Bartels Hall | Ithaca, N.Y.
Watch Live on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Cornell Game Notes (PDF)
 
GAME 17 – Penn (9-6, 0-2 Ivy) vs. Harvard (12-2, 1-1 Ivy)
Presented by Toyota
Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 | 2 p.m.
The Palestra | Philadelphia, Pa.
Watch Live on NBCSP+, ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats | Tickets
Game Program | Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Harvard Game Notes (PDF)
 
The Cornell Series
It's the 90th all-time meeting between Penn and Cornell on Saturday. The Quakers have a dominant lead in the series with a record of 68-21.
 
Penn's 14-game win streak against the Big Red is the program's current longest against an Ivy League program. One more victory would tie the Quakers' record win streak of 15 games set from 1974-1986.
 
Penn is 22-12 at Newman Arena since its opening in 1990 and head coach Mike McLaughlin is 21-7 against the Big Red all-time, his third-best record against an Ivy program behind Brown (24-5) and Dartmouth (25-4).
 
Saturday will also be McLaughlin's first matchup against Cornell head coach Emily Garner, who took over for Dayna Smith in 2024-25 following 21 seasons.
 
The Harvard Series
Penn is meeting Harvard for the 94th time in the program's history. The Crimson lead the all-time series, 55-38.
 
The Quakers have won six of the last 10 meetings between the two teams and earned a dramatic 69-67 win over Harvard at The Palestra last season.
 
Penn holds a 24-22 record at home dating back to the first matchup back in 1977. The Quakers have won two consecutive home games against Harvard, last falling on Jan. 22, 2022.
 
Looking to Break Through
Heading into the weekend, Penn is still searching for its first Ivy League victory of the season after falling to Columbia and Dartmouth to begin the year.
 
With the two defeats, the Quakers are 0-2 to start the Ivy slate for the first time since the 2019-20 campaign. That year, Penn won 10 of its last 12 games to qualify for the Ivy League tournament before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Despite that, Penn remains one of the top scoring teams in the Ancient Eight, averaging 69.7 points per game which is good for second. The Quakers are also allowing the fourth fewest points per game (60.9) this year while having the second-best opponents' field goal percentage (.377) as well.
 
Individually, the Quakers have several players atop the conference's statistical leaderboards as Stina Almqvist is ranked second in scoring (18.5 ppg), fourth in rebounds per game (8.1), and tied for fifth in blocks per game (0.8). Katie Collins leads the Ivy in blocks (2.0), is third in rebounds (8.1) and seventh in steals (1.5). Finally, Mataya Gayle's 3.9 assists per game this season is tied for third.
 
The Last Time Out
Penn couldn't find much of anything offensively in a 61-49 loss to Dartmouth on Jan. 11. 
 
Trailing by as many as 16 points on two occasions, the Quakers trimmed the deficit to just eight with 4:50 remaining in the fourth quarter but couldn't close the gap in a 12-point loss.
 
Almqvist registered her seventh 20-point performance of the season with 21 on 10 field-goal makes. She also tallied seven rebounds while playing a full 40 minutes on the floor.
 
Ashna Tambe led the second unit with nine points off the bench. She knocked down a pair of fourth-quarter triples to trim the deficit to single digits.
 
The Quakers took care of the ball on offense, committing just eight turnovers while forcing 14 Big Green turnovers on defense, which turned into nine points.
 
Stina's Starring Role
Almqvist has been sensational for the Quakers to begin this season, currently second in the Ivy League in scoring at 18.5 points per game.
 
She's registered three double-doubles this year and had recorded double digit points in 20 consecutive games dating back to the end of last season before being held to just nine against Columbia in the Ivy opener. It was the longest streak since Eleah Parker had 26 straight in 2019.
 
With 12 games remaining on the regular season schedule, Almqvist is now on the hunt for 1,000 career points. She's sitting at 893, just 107 away from becoming the 26th player in program history to achieve the milestone.
 
Phenomenal Philly Phreshmen
The Quakers wouldn't be as successful as they have been this year without the production of freshmen starters Collins and Sarah Miller.
 
Collins ranks third in the Ivy in rebounding, averaging 8.1 boards per game and is also tops in blocks with 30, averaging 2.0 per game.
 
Miller has emerged as the team's go-to sharpshooter thus far, leading the Quakers with 25 three-pointers. She's averaging 1.7 triples per game, good for a tie for fifth in the Ancient Eight.
 
Both Collins and Miller have combined for five Ivy League Rookie of the Week honors so far this season while Miller was named USBWA National Freshman of the Week back on Dec. 10 for her standout effort against La Salle in the Women's Big 5 Classic.
 
Tambe was the latest first year to break out, leading the bench with nine points on Saturday vs. Dartmouth and landed a spot on the Ivy League's weekly honor roll.
 
Statistical Leaders
Penn is ranked highly—both as a team and individually—among both Ivy and NCAA DI statistical categories as we enter Ivy League play.
 
As a team, the Quakers rank first in the Ivy, 25th in NCAA in assist/turnover ratio
(1.21) and are also highly ranked in blocks per game (4.2; 1st, 54th), fewest turnovers per game (13.0; 2nd, 25th), and fewest fouls per game (14.1; 2nd, 29th).
 
Individually, Almqvist is one of the nation's most prolific free throw shooters, ranked first in the conference, 48th in the country in free-throw makes (70). She is also highly ranked in minutes per game (35.9; 1st, 23rd) and points per game (18.5; 2nd, 39th). With 30 blocks and averaging 2.0 per game this year, Collins is tops in the Ancient Eight in both categories, ranked 39th nationally in blocks, 28th in average.
 
Welcome to the 250 Club!
Head Coach Mike McLaughlin became just the fifth coach in Ivy League history to record 250 career wins with a school after the Quakers took down the Explorers in the Big 5 Classic, 74-63.
 
McLaughlin continues to stretch out his lead as Penn's all-time wins leader, surpassing Lois Ashley's mark of 128 wins in 12 seasons with his 129th win at Dartmouth on March 3, 2017. The head man currently sits with a record of 252-168 at Penn.
 
In addition, McLaughlin earned the 650th win of his career last season against Harvard; that ranks him eighth among active Division I coaches.
 
Scouting The Big Red
Led by first-year head coach Emily Garner, Cornell has had a tough time so far with an overall record of 4-11 and an 0-2 start to Ivy League play.
 
The Big Red have dropped back-to-back contests and six of their last seven dating back to Dec. 1 at Northwestern. Their only win during that stretch was at Stony Brook on Dec. 22, a 76-73 victory.
 
In losses to Princeton and Columbia to open the conference slate, Rachel Kaus leads Cornell in scoring at 10.0 points per game. Emily Pape is the team's leading rebounder at 5.0 per game, while Vivienne Knee has a team-high 3.0 assists per game average.
 
Pape and Summer Parker-Hall lead the Big Red overall in scoring at 12.5 points per game this season with Pape also tops in rebounds (6.7) and steals (1.2).
 
Scouting The Crimson
For the ninth time this season, Harvard is receiving votes in the AP Top 25 national poll. The Crimson are 12-2 on the year, having won 10 consecutive games before falling to Princeton, 52-50, at the buzzer on Jan. 11.
 
The Crimson's run of success included victories over a pair of Big 10 foes in No. 25 Indiana on Nov. 7 and Northwestern on Nov. 23. Harvard beat the Hoosiers by four points and the Wildcats by 25 in Evanston.
 
Harvard is one of three Ivy League teams ranked inside the Top 50 in the NCAA NET rankings. The Crimson are currently ranked 38th in the poll that released early last week.
 
Harmoni Turner has been one of the most prolific scorers in the nation this season, averaging 20.3 points per game, good for 19th in the country. She's also currently slotted at fourth in the nation in steals per game (3.6).
 
Harvard also has one of the strongest defenses in the country, allowing 52.4 points per game, ranked eighth in NCAA Division I.
 
Fresh Faces
Six student-athletes make up Penn Women's Basketball's Class of 2028 including four guards and two forwards.
 
Guards include Ashna Tambe, Sarah Miller, Brooke Suttle, and Reagan Jamison.
 
The Quakers have two new forwards in Collins and Gabriella Kelley.
 
Tambe (The Hockaday School), Kelley (SF University HS), and Suttle (Campbell) scored over 1,000 points in their high school careers with Tambe leaving as the program's all-time leading scorer (with over 1,600 points).
 
20-Win Seasons
Penn is the only team in the Ivy League to surpass the 20-win plateau in seven-straight years under Coach McLaughlin after concluding the 2019-20 campaign. With no play in the Ivy League in 2020-21 due to the pandemic, the 2021-22 season was the first under-.500 season for the Quakers since the 2011-12 season when Penn went 13-15 (Coach McLaughlin's third season at the helm) but bounced back last year with a 17-12 tally.
 
Winning Streaks
Prior to McLaughlin, Penn had just one winning streak of more than seven games in its entire history (21). However, in the last six seasons, the Quakers have had nine such winning streaks, including an 11-game win streak that the Quakers were on last season until falling at Princeton (55-40) on January 16. It marked the second-longest stretch in program history only to the 21 from 2000-01.
 
Additionally, two seasons ago, the Quakers sported 12 straight wins in The Palestra from December 2022 to mid-February 2023, a program record that eclipsed the 10 set back in the 21-game stretch.
 
Magic Number: 60
The statistic that may most indicate a Penn win or loss? 60 points. Penn has won 158 of its last 172 regular season games when scoring at least 60 points in regulation. Over the last eight seasons under McLaughlin, the Quakers are 168-18 when reaching that number. In comparison overall, the Quakers are just 50-138 (.288) when they've scored less than 60 points under McLaughlin. The trend continues defensively. Over the last 11 seasons, the Red and Blue are 52-102 (.347) when allowing 60 points or more. But when holding opponents under that number, the Quakers hold a healthy winning record of 190-36 (.836).
 
For the latest on Penn women's basketball, follow @PennWBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.