ITHACA, N.Y. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team got out quickly Saturday night at Cornell, then withstood a furious Big Red rally to pull away for a 91-81 victory at Newman Arena.
Both Penn and Cornell are now 3-4 in Ivy League play and 10-10 overall. After another crazy night in the league, the two teams are just two games out of first place at the midway point of conference play.
Quaker Notemeal
*For just the second time in a game against a Division I opponent this season, Penn never trailed; the other time that happened was November 21 at Drexel.
*Penn set season highs in points (91) and first-half points (49), field-goal percentage (30-54, .556), and assists (20).
*Penn's 23-point lead late in the first half (43-20, then 48-25) was its biggest against a D1 opponent this season.
*Penn put six different players in double figures in the scoring column on Saturday night, the first time that has happened since March 7, 2015—coincidentally, also against Cornell.
*Penn outrebounded Cornell, 36-26, and took 30 foul shots to the Big Red's 19 (doubling them up in the make category, 22-11).
*
Michael Zanoni led the scoring brigade with 19 points, shooting 6-9 from the field (3-4 from distance) and making all four of his foul shots down the stretch.
*Senior
Ethan Roberts finished the night with 17 points, draining a trio of treys and hitting six of his seven foul shots. Roberts also tied for game-high honors in rebounds (7) and dished out five assists.
*Sophomore
AJ Levine was efficient offensively on Saturday, going 5-7 both from the field and at the line for his 15 points. He also had five boards and six assists.
*Junior
Augustus Gerhart was a perfect 6-of-6 from the field on Saturday night, scoring 13 points (including eight in a row to start the second half).
*His colleague at center, freshman
Dalton Scantlebury, ended the night with 12 points, seven rebounds, two steals and two blocked shots. He also led the Quakers in plus-minus, at +15.
*Junior
TJ Power scored 11 points, matched his season/career high with six assists—tying Levine for team-high honors—and added four rebounds and two steals.
*Cornell was led by its dynamic duo in the backcourt, as Cooper Noard scored 28 points (going 6-12 on three-pointers) and Jake Fiegen added 23. Adam Hinton scored 13 points, Jacob Beccles finished with 12, and Josh Baldwin dished out nine assists.
How It Happened
The teams were tied, 5-5, less than two minutes in but Roberts hit a pullup jump shot and that set the Quakers off. Zanoni followed with a triple, then Penn answered a Cornell bucket with 10 in a row that was punctuated by a pair of Scantlebury baskets. That made the score 20-7 at the under-12 media timeout, and the lead just kept building from there until it crested at 43-20 when Power dialed long distance. At that point Penn's run was 38-15 since the 5-5 tie.
The lead was still 23 late in the half, at 48-25, but Cornell gave itself a lifeline with a 10-1 run over the final 2:12 of the period. As a result, the margin was a more manageable 14 (49-35) at the break.
Cornell's only answer for Gerhart's personal eight-point run to start the second half was a Fiegen triple, and when the Penn junior finished a nice feed from Levine the Quakers' lead was back up to 19, at 57-38 with 17:30 left.
However, Cornell's style is such that the Big Red is never out of a game. That is especially true at Newman Arena.
While Penn's offensive touch went away, Noard and Fiegen went to work. The duo needed less than three minutes to score the game's next 12 points—eight by Noard, four by Fiegen—that got the margin to seven. Scantlebury briefly stopped the run, but Fiegen scored five of the game's next six points and when he drove for a layup with 11:22 left Penn's lead was just three (59-56) and Newman was rocking.
Levine put on the hero's cape at that point. The sophomore was fouled and, after a review deemed it a flagrant 1 foul, buried two free throws. Cornell missed its next shot, Levine rebounded it and he went coast-to-coast for a layup. Then Scantlebury caught a bad Big Red pass and got it to a jet-setting Levine who again went all the way to the hole. It was a six-point run that took 1:07 of game time. Just 36 seconds after that, Scantlebury drained a pair of freebies and Penn's lead was back to double digits at 11 (67-56).
Fiegen was fouled making a triple, however, and that got Cornell going again. This time the Big Red scored 11 points and Penn's only answer during the run was a pair of Roberts free throws. Hinton had the last five points in the run, and his long trey made it a one-possession game (69-67) with 7:30 still to play. Penn head coach
Fran McCaffery had seen enough at that point, and he called a timeout.
The stoppage settled things. Levine scored three the old-fashioned way out of the break, and that started a 9-0 Quakers run as Cornell went nearly three minutes without scoring. Beccles finally ended the Big Red's drought, hitting a foul shot with 4:19 to play, but the Quakers were galvanized by that point.
The knockout punch came with a little less than two minutes to play. Cornell was down by eight and had a chance to cut it to five, but missed a three-point shot. Penn got the rebound, worked the clock on offense, and Zanoni curled around a screen and hit a tough, contested shot near the right elbow that got the margin back to 10. He also contributed massively to another dagger play a minute later, throwing a perfect pass over Cornell's press that hit Levine in stride. The sophomore laid it up and in, getting the margin to 12 with 55 seconds left, and that sealed it.
Up Next
Penn is back at home for its next three games and five of the next six, starting next Saturday when archrival Princeton comes to The Palestra. Tipoff is slated for 2 p.m. and the game will air nationally on ESPNU.
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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