PHILADELPHIA – #IvyMadness is here! The fourth-seeded University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team begins its quest for a seventh Ivy League title and first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2017 on Friday, taking on top-seeded Columbia at 4:30 p.m.
 
The 2025 Ivy League Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments, presented by TIAA, are hosted by Brown University at the Pizzitola Sports Center in Providence, R.I.
 
The Quakers punched their ticket to a sixth Ivy League Tournament berth after winning the NET ranking tiebreaker over Brown on Sunday, coming into the week ranked No. 162, while the Bears were No. 184.
 
Friday's winner will take on the victor of No. 2 Princeton and No. 3 Harvard on Saturday in the #IvyMadness championship game at 5:30 p.m. The contest will be broadcasted to a national audience on ESPNU and on Westwood One Radio.
 
GAME 28 – #4 Penn (15-12, 6-8 Ivy) vs. #1 Columbia (22-5, 13-1 Ivy)
Ivy League Tournament Semifinal
Friday March 14, 2025 | 4:30 p.m.
Pizzitola Sports Center | Providence, R.I.
Watch on ESPN+ ($) | Live Stats
IvyMadness.com | Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Columbia Game Notes (PDF)
 
Back in #IvyMadness!
The Quakers are back in #IvyMadness! It's the third straight year Penn is appearing in the Ivy League Tournament and the sixth time in the last seven seasons. It only missed the tourney once, in 2022.

• Penn is looking for its first Ivy League Tournament title since 2017, which was also its last NCAA appearance.
• Penn won the inaugural event in 2017 at The Palestra; after winning the regular season, they were the top seed and beat #4 Brown (71-60) and #2 Princeton (57-48) to earn the league's NCAA Tournament bid.
• The Quakers also made the final as a second seed in both 2018 and 2019, losing to top-seeded Princeton both times (63-34 in 2018 at The Palestra and 65-54 in 2019 at Yale).
• This is the third straight year Penn has been the fourth seed; last year the Quakers fell to top-seeded Princeton, 59-54 at Columbia's Levien Gymnasium.

Secure Your Seats!
Fans can purchase tickets to the 2025 Ivy League Men's and Women's Basketball tournaments by visiting IvyMadness.com. Click here for a direct link to purchase tickets for Friday night's semifinal between Penn and Columbia.
 
Live From #IvyMadness
Fans can watch all press conferences, shootarounds and interviews from Women's Media Day on the Live from Ivy Madness show. The show will be available live, exclusively on ESPN+. Click here to watch Women's Media Day, which begins at 3 p.m. ET.
 
The Columbia Series
Friday marks the first time Penn is meeting Columbia in #IvyMadness, since the ILT began back in 2016-17.
 
This will be 78th all-time meeting between Penn and Columbia, with the Quakers leading the series 52-25.
 
Columbia has won seven of the last 10 meetings including five straight and seven of the last eight.
 
The Lions are currently on their longest win streak (five) in the all-time series.

Road To Get Here
It wasn't the easiest road for Penn to clinch a spot in this year's #IvyMadness.

The Quakers began the season 2-6 before rattling off five wins in February (including a mega-important win over Brown on Feb. 15) to claw back into the fourth spot. 

Coming into Friday's ILT semi, Penn has won five of its last seven games.
 
Major Awards and All-Ivy Honors
Penn was well-represented when the Ivy League office unveiled its slate of major award winners and All-Ivy selections on Tuesday afternoon.
 
Freshman forward Katie Collins was unanimously named Ivy Rookie of the Year by all eight Ancient Eight coaches, while Stina Almqvist was named first-team All-Ivy and Mataya Gayle earned honorable mention All-Ivy laurels.
 
Collins is the Quakers' second consecutive Rookie of the Year award winner (Gayle in 2023-24), the seventh in the Mike McLaughlin era, and the eighth overall.
 
Four-Seed History
Since the first iteration of the Ivy Tournament in 2017, No. 4 seeds are 0-6 in the semifinal round.
 
Harvard in 2022 and Penn in 2024 were the closest to overtaking the top seed in the opening round, the Crimson falling to Princeton 72-67 and the Quakers dropping a 59-54 decision to the Tigers last year.
 
This is the third straight year Penn is the four seed after falling to Princeton the previous two seasons.
 
That being said, Columbia is the first team other than Princeton or Penn to be the No. 1 seed in #IvyMadness. The Quakers had the top spot in 2017, the Tigers with pole position the rest of the way.
 
Last Time Against Columbia
Penn had a 16-15 lead following the first quarter, but a 24-0 scoring run bridging the second and third stanzas was enough for Columbia to come away with a 79-54 victory in New York City.
 
Simone Sawyer led the Quakers with a team-high tying 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting, along with a season-high six steals. Gayle also scored 14 points, adding six rebounds and three assists over 40 minutes. Sarah Miller led the bench with eight points on a pair of three-pointers and Penn was a perfect 7-for-7 from the free-throw line.
 
Miss Nine Time!
Before eventually being named Ivy Rookie of the Year, Collins was named Rookie of the Week nine times this season and five straight weeks heading into the final weekend of the regular season.
 
She finishes the year tied with Harvard's Allison Feaster (1995) and Princeton's Niveen Rasheed (2010) and Bella Alarie (2017) for the second- most Rookie awards won by an Ivy in a single season.
 
The record of 10 is set by Penn Athletics Hall of Famer Diana Caramanico (1998), Dartmouth's Elise Morrison (2004), and Harvard's Temi Fagbenle (2013).
 
All seven of the names mentioned above—including Collins—went on to be named Rookie of the Year. Guess you could consider this year to be a successful one for the frosh!
 
Last Time Out
Penn fell to Princeton, 67-53, in the final game of the regular season Saturday at The Palestra on Senior Day.
 
Before the contest, the Quakers honored Almqvist, Lizzy Groetsch, and manager Mabel Moosbrugger with a pre-game ceremony.
 
Never getting closer than seven points late in the third quarter, the Tigers led for almost the entirety of the contest and pulled away in the fourth for the win. Almqvist recorded her seventh double-double of the season with 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Gayle had 13 points, four boards, and five assists. Penn was near-perfect from the free throw line, making 17 of 18. The Quakers turned the ball over 16 times—including 14 in the first half—which led to 10 Princeton points.
 
Statistical Leaders
Penn is ranked highly—both as a team and individually—among both Ivy and NCAA DI statistical categories.
 
As a team, the Quakers rank second in the Ivy, 50th in NCAA in assist/turnover ratio
(1.12) and are also highly ranked in three-point percentage defense (28.1; 3rd, 45th), fewest turnovers per game (12.9; 2nd, 33rd), and fewest fouls per game (14.3; 3rd, 43rd).
 
Individually, Almqvist is putting together quite the senior season, ranked 35th in the nation in minutes per game at 36.0, 64th in points per game (17.7) and 65th in total free throws (122). With 45 blocks and averaging 1.7 per game this year, Collins is tops in the Ancient Eight in both categories, ranked 74th nationally in blocks, 57th in average. Additionally, Gayle is third in the Ivy, 84th nationally in assists per game average (4.3).
 
Scouting The Lions
Columbia clinched its first outright Ivy League title in 2024-25, also claiming the No. 1 seed at the ILT for the first time after a tremendous season, going 22-5 overall with a 13-1 record in Ivy play.
 
Kitty Henderson was named Defensive Player of the Year to go with a unanimous first-team All-Ivy selection. Riley Weiss was also named first-team All-Ivy, joined by Cecelia Collins (second team). Columbia head coach Megan Griffith and her staff was named Coaching Staff of the Year for a third straight season.
 
Weiss, a sophomore, leads the Lions in scoring (18.0 ppg) and three-point field goal percentage (.372). Henderson is also averaging double figures with 13.5 points per game, 6.1 rebounds, 5.1 assists, and 2.4 steals.
 
Columbia leads the league in a plethora of stat categories including scoring offense (74.0 ppg), three-pointers per game (7.9), rebounds per game (40.1), rebound margin (+9.0), assists per game (17.4) and assist/turnover ratio (1.28).
 
Welcome to the 250 Club!
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 252-167 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.
 
Magic Number: 60
The statistic that may most indicate a Penn win or loss? 60 points. Penn has won 161 of its last 176 regular season games when scoring at least 60 points in regulation. Over the last eight seasons under McLaughlin, the Quakers are 171-19 when reaching that number. In comparison overall, the Quakers are just 50-142 (.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 55-107 (.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).
 
Follow The Action
Friday's semifinal will be streamed live on ESPN+ with Eric Frede (PxP) and Christy Thomaskutty (analyst) on the call. Live stats will also be provided.
 
For the latest on Penn women's basketball, follow @PennWBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.