NEW YORK CITY – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team fell at Columbia Friday night, 72-67, in the first half of its New York swing through the Ivy League's Empire State programs.
 
Penn was down by as much as 13 in the first half, came all the way back to take the lead twice midway through the second half, but couldn't make the plays down the stretch as the Lions gained the victory.
 
Penn falls to 2-4 in league play and is now 9-10 overall, while Columbia improved to 3-3 and is 14-6 overall.
 
Quaker Notemeal
*Penn lost this game despite committing just eight turnovers while Columbia had 18. The Quakers outscored the Lions in points off turnovers, 13-6.
 
*Junior TJ Power led all players with 23 points on Friday night, 19 of them coming in the second half. HE also led the Quakers in rebounds (7) and assists (4).
 
*Senior Michael Zanoni was Penn's only other double-digit scorer, with 15 points; he started the game by scoring 10 of the Quakers' first 14 points.
 
*Junior Augustus Gerhart scored eight points—giving Penn its first lead with a steal and score with 9:05 to play—and grabbed five rebounds, two on the offensive glass.
 
*Freshman Jay Jones was a nice factor off the bench Friday night, scoring six points and doubling his previous high with six boards (three offensive). He also had three assists in playing nearly 25 minutes.
 
*Sophomore AJ Levine also had six points and led Penn with two of its seven steals.
 
*Senior Ethan Roberts entered the night leading the Ivy League in conference scoring but was held to five points; it was just the second time this season he was held under double digits (the other coming vs. Villanova, when he was hurt early on).
 
*Columbia put four players in double figures, led by Connor Igoe who came off the bench and recorded a double-double (15 points/10 rebounds). Blair Thompson added 16, Gerard O'Keefe scored 14, and Mason Ritter added 10. Another top scorer in the league, Kenny Noland, had just seven points on Friday but contributed nine rebounds and eight assists.
 
How It Happened
The host Lions got out quickly Friday night at Levien Gym, taking a 10-4 lead that was still 15-9 at the under-12 media timeout. The margin swelled to 13 when Thompson drained a three-pointer that punctuated a seven-point Columbia run and made the score 25-12. However, Zanoni and Jones scored on consecutive possessions and that brought about a timeout. The stoppage did not slow down the Quakers, whose run ultimately got to 13-2 when Roberts scored from distance with 1:41 left in the half. It was a five-point game at the break, Columbia leading 32-27.
 
The hosts scored seven of the first nine points in the second half and still led by eight (51-43) when Noland hit a layup with 12:33 left. Penn responded with the game's next nine points, though, as Columbia went nearly four minutes without a point. When Gerhart stole the ball on defense and took it coast-to-coast for a layup, the Quakers had their first lead of the night at 52-51 with nine minutes left.
 
O'Keefe and Power traded treys, but then Thompson dialed long distance and Columbia had a lead it wouldn't relinquish. The Lions' run was 11-3 over a span of 2:21 that put them in front, 65-58, with 5:10 left.
 
Power got three back quickly from distance, but it was one frustration after another from that point on. Think about this: Columbia scored just two points over a span of 4:23—and the best Penn could do in that time was whittle a four-point deficit to two, when Levine hit a pair of foul shots with exactly one minute left. Columbia got the margin back to four quickly, Noland driving into the paint and feeding an alley-oop to Ritter who converted. Penn got within two one final time on a Levine bucket, but Columbia did enough at the foul line in the final 20 seconds to salt this one away.
 
Up Next
Penn continues this Empire State swing tomorrow night, making the overnight trip to Ithaca to face Cornell on Saturday night at 6 p.m. The Big Red defeated Princeton on Friday night, 87-64.
 
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.