PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team enters its second Big 5 pod game with everything to play for. The Quakers make the short trip up 33rd Street to face Drexel on Friday night knowing that a win will put them in the Big 5 Classic championship game on Saturday, Dec. 6 at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
 
In case you were wondering: yes, Friday's "road trip" is the shortest in the nation at the Division I level. Per Google Maps, the distance from The Palestra to the Daskalakis Athletic Center (a.k.a. "The DAC") is 0.5 miles.
 
In addition to airing nationally on FloCollege, Friday's game with the Dragons will be broadcast live locally on NBC Sports Philadelphia.
 
GAME 5 – PENN (2-2) at DREXEL (2-3)
Friday, Nov. 21, 2025 | 7 p.m.
Philadelphia | Daskalakis Athletic Center (DAC)
Watch on FloCollege ($) | Listen on QAN | Live Stats
 
Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Drexel Game Notes (PDF)
 
Quaker Audio Network (QAN)
Penn fans can listen to all of the 2025-26 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 again this season, with Stan Pawlak providing analysis. To access the Quaker Audio Network, simply type www.pennathletics.com/audio into your computer or device.
 
The Series with Drexel
*Friday night's meeting between these University City rivals will be the 29th in the series, with Penn holding a 17-11 lead.

*If you look at modern history, then the Dragons have the upper hand—they have an 11-10 lead in the 21 games that have been played since the series was renewed in 1988 after a 60-year hiatus. (Penn won the seven games played from 1920-28.) That includes wins in seven of the last nine meetings.

*These two teams met in last year's Big 5 Classic fifth-place game; that contest was tied at halftime, but the Dragons outscored Penn in the second half, 30-17, for the 60-47 victory.
 
*This marks just Penn's fourth trip to Daskalakis, the others coming in 2008, 2015 and 2022. The Quakers are 1-2 at the DAC with the win coming the last time they played here, 64-59 on November 15, 2022.
 
Big 5 Pod Updates
*If Penn wins Friday's game, the Quakers will play in the championship game at the Big 5 Classic on December 6 at Xfinity Mobile Arena. That game will tip off at 7:30 p.m.
 
*If Drexel wins, the Quakers and Dragons will join Saint Joseph's in finishing pod play with 1-1 records. The tiebreaker in such cases is the first NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) of the season, which will be released at a later date.
 
*In the other pod, Temple and Villanova both have wins over La Salle, the Owls beating the Explorers on November 11 at the Liacouras Center, 90-63, and the Wildcats going to Olney this past Wednesday and downing the Explorers, 70-55. As a result, the winner of the Villanova-Temple game December 1 at Finneran Pavilion will play in the Big 5 Classic championship game.
 
Penn MBB by the Numbers
1 - Penn players who have scored in double digits in all four games so far this season: Ethan Roberts. The Quakers' leading scorer from last year opened the season with 28 points vs. Rowan—in just 18 minutes—recorded 19 at American and 15 at Providence, then exploded for 31 points (24 of them coming in the second half) in Monday's win over Saint Joseph's.
 
2 - Transfers who joined Penn for the 2025-26 season: TJ Power (Virginia/Duke) and Lucas Lueth (Kirkwood CC). Power was a five-star recruit out of high school who started his career at Duke and spent last season at UVA. Lueth helped Kirkwood go 33-3 overall and win the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division II national championship last year; he was named the tournament's MVP after recording 46 points, seven steals and nine blocked shots across four games.
 
7 - Total newcomers added to the 2025-26 roster: in addition to Power and Lueth, the Quakers also have a freshman "starting five" in Ryan Altman, Jay Jones—son of current Boston University head coach Joe Jones and nephew of Yale head coach James Jones­—Payton Kamin, William Kruse, and Dalton Scantlebury.
 
11 - Rebounds secured by junior Augustus Gerhart November 9 at American, his career high and tops among all players in the game. Gerhart is second on the team in rebounds per game (8.0) and has grabbed 15 of his 32 boards on the offensive glass (46.9 percent).
 
12 – Lead changes in Monday's game between Penn and Saint Joseph's; the teams also were tied 15 times. The final score in the Quakers' win (83-74) marked the largest margin in the game for either team.
 
15 – Rebounds pulled down by junior TJ Power on Monday against Saint Joseph's, the most by a Penn player since Lucas Monroe grabbed 16 on November 30, 2022 against, you guessed it, the Hawks.
 
+18 – Penn's margin in free throw attempts through three Division I games so far this season; the Quakers have taken 79 foul shots to a combined 61 by American, Providence and St. Joe's.
 
43.3 - Penn's shooting percentage from three-point land in three games against Division I competition to far this season (29-67); that is actually better than the Quakers are shooting inside the arc (46-115, 40.0 percent).
 
49 - Free throws taken by Penn in the season opener against Rowan; the Quakers made 33. The last time the Red and Blue shot that many foul shots was their four-overtime game at Monmouth on November 25, 2017 (50), and the last time they made at least 33 was January 25, 2014 (35-43 vs. NJIT).
 
50 - Points scored by Michael Zanoni in Penn's first two Division I games this season; he had 20 at American, then dropped a career-high 30 last Tuesday at Providence. Perhaps most impressively, Zanoni shot 61.1 percent from three-point land in the two games (11-18). On Monday, Zanoni was held scoreless and only got two shots off against Saint Joseph's.
 
54 – Combined points scored by Roberts (31) and Power (23) Monday against the Hawks. It marked the first time the Quakers had a 30-point scorer and a 20-point scorer in the same game since December 2, 2023 (Clark Slajchert 33, Tyler Perkins 20 vs. La Salle).
 
119 - Points scored by Penn in the season opener against the Profs, a program single-game record. The previous mark was 115, scored on December 1, 1969 against Muhlenberg.
 
2025-26 Penn MBB Schedule Notes
*Following Friday's game at Drexel, Penn will host a Thanksgiving tournament for the fourth straight season; the Cathedral Classic will feature the Quakers along with Big 5 rival La Salle, Merrimack and Hofstra. The teams will play doubleheaders on Friday, Nov. 28; Saturday, Nov. 29; and Sunday, Nov. 30. Penn will play the second game each day and is scheduled to face, in order, Merrimack, La Salle and Hofstra.
 
*A relative newcomer to NCAA Division I, Merrimack is the only first-time D1 opponent on the docket for this season. That said, this will only be the third meeting between the Quakers and Hofstra and the first since they met at Madison Square Garden in the 1998 ECAC Holiday Festival final.
 
*Penn will play five home games in both November and February, but in between those two months the Quakers are home just four times combined in December and January.
 
*Penn renews a dormant rivalry on December 20 when it makes the trip up to Rutgers. The Quakers and Scarlet Knights were traditional early-season foes through the 1950s and 1960s and have played 23 times overall, but the holiday matchup will be the first between the programs since 1975.
 
*Penn will play on New Year's Eve, hosting NJIT at 2 p.m. The last time the Quakers played on NYE was 2018-19, the Quakers falling in OT to Monmouth at The Palestra.
 
*The Ivy League schedule is new this season and Penn will have some work to do early on—the Quakers will play five of their first seven league games on the road, then five out of six at home before ending the campaign at Brown on Friday, March 6.
 
*That said, Penn will play just one road "Ivy weekend" this season—January 30-31 at Columbia and Cornell. The Dartmouth-Harvard trip will be a Saturday/Monday weekend, the game against the Crimson coming on MLK Day.
 
*Two of Penn's Ivy League games will air nationally on ESPNU—the January 24 home game with Yale and the February 7 home game with Princeton.
 
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.