PHILADELPHIA — Coming off a 78-44 win over the University of St. Thomas on Friday afternoon, the University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team has a massive test on Sunday when they are in Austin to take on the University of Texas. The Longhorns are ranked fourth currently and coming off a Women's Final Four appearance last year.
 
GAME 8 - PENN (5-2, 0-0 Ivy League) at #4 TEXAS (7-0, 0-0 SEC)
Sunday, Nov. 30, 2025 | 2 p.m.
Austin, Texas | Moody Center
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
 
The Texas Series
This will be the second-ever matchup between the Quakers and the Longhorns. The first was a neutral-site affair at the 2014 NCAA Tournament in College Park, Md., Texas coming away with a 79-61 victory.

Penn finished with a 22-7 record that season, its third-best single season win total in program history.
 
Sunday's contest will mark the first time that Texas has hosted Penn at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. 
 
Last Time Out
The Quakers opened its trip to the Lone Star State with a 78-44 victory over NCAA Division III University of St. Thomas on Friday in Houston. Katie Collins scored a team-high 18 points for the Red and Blue on six-of-six shooting from behind the arc. Mataya Gayle totaled six of the team's 22 assists while also scoring 14 points. Eight different Quakers hit at least one three-point shot, and overall the team shot 14 of 33 from downtown.
 
The Saint Joseph's Recap
Penn fell to Big 5 rival Saint Joseph's, 74-53, in the first home loss of the season Monday evening at The Palestra.
 
The Quakers fell to 0-2 in Big 5 pod play and will play in the fifth place game at the Women's Big 5 Classic at Villanova's Finneran Pavilion on Sunday, Dec. 7. Last year, the Quakers defeated La Salle, 74-63, to take fifth place at the inaugural Big 5 Classic. Simone Sawyer who led the way for the Quakers,  scoring 14 points with a team-high seven rebounds. She also picked up a pair of steals in 37 minutes of action. Tina Njike scored 10 points, eight coming in the third quarter. She was 6-of-8 from the free throw line.The Quakers recorded 15 assists with four each for Saniah Caldwell and Katie Collins. Mataya Gayle, who led the Ivy League in helpers entering the night, finished with three.
 
Scouting the Longhorns
Texas has begun the season as one of the hottest teams in the country, winning each of its first seven games.
 
Junior Madison Booker leads the Longhorns in scoring this season averaging just under 17 points per contest.
 
Six different players average double digit points as the team ranks fourth in the country in scoring offense averaging 98.3 points per game.
 
The Longhorns also rank within the top 25 teams in the country in scoring defense, allowing just 51.8 points per game to opponents.
 
Senior guard Rori Harmon sets the table for the Texas offense, ranking No. 3 in the nation in assist to turnover ratio, currently averaging 6.6 assists per contest.
 
A Bright Future
Just like how things finished up last season, the Quakers were picked to finish fourth in the Ivy League's preseason poll, earning 106 points by a panel of 16 media members.
 
Despite losing a pair of key starters—first-team All-Ivy selection Stina Almqvist and Lizzy Groetsch—to graduation, Penn returns three key members of the starting lineup in Gayle, Sawyer, and Collins. Gayle (2023-24) and Collins (2024-25) have won each of the last two Ivy League Rookie of the Year awards.
 
Another familiar face is re-joining her teammates as Ese Ogbevire is set to make her 2025-26 debut after missing all of the 2024-25 campaign with a torn ACL. Ogbevire shined brightly during her freshman season, averaging 4.7 points per game, adding 23 assists and nine steals. She was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week twice.
 
Things looked promising for Brooke Suttle when the season finished up last season, as she made a tremendous impact late in the year. She played the most minutes (27) of her rookie season at Princeton on Feb. 8 before finding herself getting more playing time by year's end. In the Quakers' 60-54 loss to Columbia in the Ivy League Tournament semis, Suttle poured in six points with six rebounds in 17 minutes.
 
So Many Fresh Faces
Penn has a freshman class of four this season, bringing the team total to 17 student-athletes.
 
Ruke Ogbevire (Houston, Texas/Fulshear), Ari Paraskevopoulou (Athens, Greece/16th General HS of Athens), Kate Lipatova (Moscow, Russia/Putnam Science Academy (Conn.), and Sarah Gordon (Vestavia Hills, Ala./Vestavia Hills) are all eager to make their collegiate debuts this season, maybe as soon as Friday afternoon.
 
Of the four, two (Ogbevire, 1,895 points; Gordon, 2,168) graduated as their high school's all-time leading scorers, while the other two (Paraskevopoulou, Greece; Lipatova, Russia) played for their national teams.
 
In addition to the players, Mike McLaughlin has a new member on his coaching staff in Ryan Weise (pronounced 'wee-see'), who became an assistant coach following two seasons as Holy Cross' Director of Basketball Operations.
 
With the departure of longtime associate head coach Kelly Killion, who took the head coaching job at American University in the offseason, McLaughlin promoted another longtime assistant Ashley Robinson to associate head coach and recruiting coordinator.
 
Captain, Captain, Captain, Captain, Captain
Penn has a program-record tying five captains leading the team in 2025-26.
 
The leadership group is made up of seniors Caldwell, Sawyer, and Georgia Heine, as well as junior Gayle and sophomore Collins.
 
There's only two other occasions in program history that the Quakers had five—2004-05 and 2020-21 (a season that was canceled due to COVID-19).
 
Magic Number: 60
The statistic that may most indicate a Penn win or loss? 60 points. Penn has won 164 of its last 179 regular season games when scoring at least 60 points in regulation. Over the last eight seasons under McLaughlin, the Quakers are 174-19 when reaching that number. In comparison overall, the Quakers are just 51-143 (.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 55-108 (.347) when allowing 60 points or more. But when holding opponents under that number, the Quakers hold a healthy winning record of 192-36 (.836).
 
For the latest on Penn Women's basketball, follow @PennWBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.