PHILADELPHIA – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team will make its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018 on Thursday night, the 14th-seeded Quakers facing third-seeded Illinois out of the Big Ten in a first-round game at BSW Arena in Greenville, S.C.
 
The winner of Thursday night's game will face the winner of sixth-seeded North Carolina and 11th-seeded VCU in the second round on Saturday.
 
GAME 30 – #14 PENN (18-11) vs. #3 ILLINOIS (24-8)
NCAA Tournament First Round
Thursday, March 19, 2026 | 9:25 p.m.
Greenville, S.C. | Bon Secours Wellness (BSW) Arena
Watch on TNT | Listen on Varsity Network | Live Stats
 
Penn Game Notes (PDF) | Illinois Notes (PDF)
 
Quaker Audio Network (QAN)
For the NCAA Tournament, Penn fans can hear Matt Leon, Stan Pawlak and Vince Curran on the Quaker Audio Network through the Varsity Network, a mobile app that is host for all of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament action in 2026. Click here to find Thursday night's game!
 
Penn's March Madness History
*Penn is making its 25th appearance in the NCAA Tournament, second among Ivy programs (Princeton, 26); the Quakers boast a 13-26 record.
 
*This is Penn's first NCAA appearance since 2018 and just the second time the Quakers have advanced by virtue of winning the Ivy League Tournament, which started in 2017.
 
Penn has been a 14 seed two other times...
*The 1993 team was the first of three straight to go unbeaten in Ivy League play (ultimately winning 48 straight Ivy games) but fell to third-seeded UMass, 54-50, in Syracuse, N.Y. That team was led by Barry Pierce and featured guards Jerome Allen and Matt Maloney.
 
*The second came in 2007, the Quakers capping a three-year run of Ivy League championships with a 68-52 loss to Texas A&M in Lexington, Ky. That team featured two-time Ivy League Player of the Year Ibby Jaaber and first-team All-Ivy Mark Zoller.
 
Good to Know…
*Penn enters March Madness having won five in a row and nine of its last 10; the only loss in that stretch came on February 21, a four-point loss on the road to Ivy regular-season champion Yale.
 
*Penn won the Ivy League Tournament in dramatic fashion, knocking off second-seeded Harvard and top-seeded Yale, both in overtime (Penn's first OT games this season). Junior TJ Power set an ILT record with 44 points in the championship game and was named Most Outstanding Player of the event.
 
*Power was a unanimous selection as first-team All-Ivy—the program's first since Jordan Dingle in 2022-23—while senior Ethan Roberts received second-team All-Ivy honors.
 
*Head coach Fran McCaffery—a 1982 Penn alum—is just the fifth coach in history to bring five different programs to March Madness (previously Lehigh, UNC Greensboro, Siena, and Iowa). The others are Rick Pitino (who has taken six to NCAAs), Steve Alford, Lon Kruger, and Tubby Smith.
 
The Series with Illinois
*Seventh meeting in a series that dates back to 1947; Illinois leads, 6-0.
 
*Second NCAA Tournament meeting: Illinois beat Penn, 68-58, in the 2000 Tournament in Winston-Salem, N.C. That Penn team featured current Colgate head coach Matt Langel and his backcourt mate Michael Jordan. (No, not that Michael Jordan!)
 
*Most recent meeting took place on November 22, 2001 at the Las Vegan Invitational, a 7871 Illinois victory.
 
*Penn head coach Fran McCaffery is no stranger to Thursday's opponent, of course, having faced them for 15 years as head coach at Iowa. He has an 11-16 record against the Fighting Illini.
 
Penn MBB by the Numbers
1 - Seniors across the Big 5 (and Drexel) who played all four years at the same school: Penn's Cam Thrower; after not hitting for double digits in a game since December 28, Thrower had 11 vs. Harvard and a career-high 19 against Yale last weekend at the Ivy Tourney.
 
3 - Different starting lineups this season for Penn (only due of injury or illness); compare that to a year ago, when the Quakers put out 15 different lineups.
 
+3.64 - Penn's turnover margin in Ivy League regular-season play, tops among the Ancient Eight programs.
 
5.4 - Difference in points-per-game average for sophomore AJ Levine in Ivy play (10.9 ppg) vs. the non-conference portion of Penn's season (5.5 ppg).
 
8 - Penn players who have led the team in scoring in at least one game this season; also the number of players who have led the team in rebounding in a game this season. (See page 25 for a full breakdown of both stats.)
 
12 - Combined points that Penn lost by in its four Ivy road losses: 78-76 at Princeton (2), 64-63 at Harvard (1), 72-67 at Columbia (5), 74-70 at Yale (4).
 
14 - Points needed by junior TJ Power to become the 16th player in program history with a 500-point season. (The last was Jordan Dingle, who did it in 2021-22 and again in 2022-23.)
 
16.9 - Senior Ethan Roberts' overall points-per-game average, tops on the team and fourth among Ivy players; he missed Ivy Madness with his second concussion this season.
 
19 - Steals collected by Penn in its regular-season finale at Brown, most against a D1 opponent since January 23, 1982—when current head coach Fran McCaffery was a senior. ("White Magic" had six of those thefts.)
 
34 - Steals by Levine in Ivy League play this season, tops among Ivy players.
 
38.6 - Penn's overall 3FG percentage this season, which is third among Ivy teams but 15th nationally.
 
44 - Points scored by Power in Penn's ILT championship win over Yale—23 in the first half, 17 in the second half, 4 in OT—including two treys in the final seconds of regulation to force overtime; that is tied for the third-highest scoring game in Penn men's basketball history.
 
65 - Offensive rebounds pulled down this season by junior Augie Gerhart, tied for second among Ivy players behind Columbia's Mason Ritter.
 
92.0 - Michael Zanoni's overall FT percentage this season (46-50); with four more makes, he'll likely hold the program's single-season record for percentage (currently 89.7 by Matt Maloney in 1993-94).
 
115 - Assists dished out by Levine this season, most by a Penn player since AJ Brodeur—also the program's all-time leading scorer—had 140 in 2019-20.
 
309 - Free throws taken in league play by Penn, most among the Ancient Eight programs (Dartmouth was the only other team within 60 of the Quakers, with 297); the Quakers took 81 more foul shots than their opponents in Ivy play, by far the biggest margin among the eight teams.
 
1.000 - Penn's free-throw percentage in the Ivy Madness final against Yale (16-16); quite a feat, given that the Quakers finished the regular season sixth among Ivy teams in the category (.693).
 
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.