PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team nearly pulled out a win that would have been nothing short of miraculous, but instead it was Harvard that came up with the final miracle of the night and the result was a 79-78 Crimson victory Saturday night at The Palestra.
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Penn made up a 17-point deficit and had a five-point lead and the ball with only 33 seconds left. However, Harvard was able to make up the deficit when Evan Nelson corralled a loose ball and drained a three-pointer with just 1.1 seconds left to send the game to overtime. In the extra session, Penn led twice but it was the Crimson that scored four of the final five points—all of them on Robert Hinton foul shots—and when Penn was unable to finish three contested finishes on its final possession Harvard had escaped with the one-point victory.
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Penn is now 7-17 overall and 3-8 in Ivy play. Harvard kept its Ivy League Tournament hopes alive at 5-6 and is 10-14 overall.
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Quaker Notemeal
*This was Penn's first overtime game since December 23 of last season and the 22nd in the
Steve Donahue coaching era.
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*For the second straight night, Penn hit 32 field goals which is tied for the team high this season.
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*Penn once again dominated the points in the paint numbers, with a 58-28 advantage over the Crimson.
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*Penn outrebounded Harvard on the night, 36-32, and had a 10-4 advantage in second-chance points.
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*The 17-point deficit that Penn made up matched its biggest comeback this season; the Quakers were down 17 in the season opener at NJIT but came back to win by one.
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*One night after tying his career high with 23 points, senior
Nick Spinoso—who was celebrated prior to the game along with classmates
Reese McMullen and
George Smith—topped it with 24 on Saturday. He had another strong night from the field (11-17) and also tied for game-high honors with eight rebounds.
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*Sophomore
Sam Brown scored 19 points, 12 of them in the second half, and tied for the team lead with three assists.
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*Sophomore
Augustus Gerhart scored 12 points, a career high, going 4-5 from the field and 4-5 at the foul line.
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*Junior
Ethan Roberts extended his double-figure scoring streak to 17 with 11 points and added five boards.
*Sophomore
Niklas Polonowski grabbed six rebounds, his career high in that category.
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*In his final home game, Smith scored eight points and added three rebounds and two assists.
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*Harvard got 22 points from Hinton, who led five Crimson players in double figures; he also had eight rebounds and three assists. Thomas Batties II finished with 15 points while Chandler Pigge added 14, Austin Hunt had 13, and Nelson chipped in with 10 including the heroic triple.
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How It Happened
After a thrilling comeback victory the night before against Dartmouth, Penn fell into the exact same pattern on Saturday—an extremely slow start. This time the game was barely eight minutes old, Harvard held a 21-4 lead, and Donahue was already calling his second timeout of the game.
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The Quakers spent the rest of the half trying to whittle away at the margin, but the Crimson had an answer every time and held a 12-point lead at the break. When Nelson drained a triple to open the second half, Harvard's lead was 43-28.
Penn quickly went to work after that. Smith sandwiched a pair of buckets around a Roberts score, and then Spinoso answered a pair of Pigge foul shots with baskets on three straight possessions. Overall, it was a 12-2 run and the Red and Blue were within five (45-40) at the first media timeout.
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Pigge then scored out of the break, but Brown hit a floater and then Gerhart added the next three points, pushing the run to 17-4 and making it a 47-45 Harvard lead.
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The Crimson looked like they might weather the storm, scoring the next five points. The lead was still six, at 58-52, when Nelson scored in the paint. Harvard took a timeout after that basket, but the stoppage only opened the door for a Quaker surge—first Spinoso, then Gerhart, made good on old-fashioned and-1 three-point plays, and when Gerhart's foul shot swished through this game was tied for the first time, at 58-58, with 5:16 left.
Harvard then committed a shot clock violation, the Penn defense forcing a loose ball scramble, and at the other end Brown calmly stepped into a three-pointer at the top of the key which gave Penn its first lead at 61-58. That lead held to the under-4 media, and out of the stoppage Spinoso again showed his touch on the block and Penn's lead was five with a little more than three minutes to play.
Hunt and Pigge tried to get Harvard back level, but their baskets were matched by Spinoso (off a Roberts offensive rebound) and then a Roberts jumper in the lane. Hinton hit a pair of foul shots with 1:42 to go, but Spinoso again converted on the block and Penn's lead was five as the clock went inside a minute.
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Harvard came up empty on its next possession and needed to foul a bunch just to get Penn to the bonus. They did so twice, but then after the Quakers beat Harvard's press (and avoided fouls) they turned it over on a bad pass out of bounds near midcourt. The Crimson quickly turned that into a Hinton bucket, making it a one-possession game, then fouled twice more to finally get Penn to 1-and-1. The plan worked as the Red and Blue missed the front end not once but twice, giving their guests life both times. After both Penn immediately fouled—always foul when up three!—and while it paid off the first time (Hinton missing the front end) it did not the second time (Hinton hitting both with 6.2 seconds left).
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The Crimson fouled Brown on the ensuing inbounds, and he made good on both of his knee-knocking foul shots to make the score 71-68 with 5.0 seconds left. Forced into desperation, Harvard threw a long pass down the court, and Brown played defensive back and got a hand on the ball with a Crimson player behind him. It was his bad luck that the loose ball fell to Nelson, who took two dribbles away from his defender and put up a three-pointer that swished through with 1.1 seconds left. It was a stunning sequence of events.
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Perhaps still in shock, Penn didn't score until nearly the midpoint of the extra session on a pair of Gerhart foul shots. Spinoso then gave the Quakers a lead with another hook in the lane, but that was answered by Louis Lesmond. Roberts was fouled with 1:14 left and made both, again putting Penn in front, but Hinton was fouled going up for a putback and the Crimson player made both of his shots to tie things at 77-77 with the clock under a minute.
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Penn played pick-and-roll to get Spinoso free and it nearly worked, the Crimson fouling him as he went up. The senior missed his first foul shot but made his second. At the other end, Hinton got the ball near the foul line and appeared to slip as he tried to get around Smith. Instead the whistle blew and Hinton was at the line shooting two. He made both to put the Crimson in front with 26.0 seconds left.
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Penn had three shots to win it, though Harvard did well to contest all of them. First, Roberts drove the lane and put up a hard layup that had no chance. Spinoso got the rebound, however, and had it poked out of bounds. The Quakers ran a play that got the ball to Brown in the right corner, but his three-pointer was tipped by Lesmond and fell into Spinoso's hands. With the clock nearing zero and several Crimson players frantically defending him, Spinoso did well just to get a shot up but it fell away as the final buzzer sounded.
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Up Next
Penn is on the road for its final three games, starting next weekend in New York when the Quakers face Cornell on Friday (7 p.m.) and Columbia on Saturday (6 p.m.).
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For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.
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