PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team ended the regular season with a satisfying, 82-61 victory at Brown Friday night at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
The Quakers built up as much as an 18-point lead in the first half, before Brown fought back to within five on a few occasions early in the second. At that point, though, Penn went on a 15-2 run that essentially put this game to bed.
Penn (16-11) ends the season with a 9-5 Ivy League campaign and finishes third behind Harvard, which was an 81-71 winner over Columbia Friday night. Brown finishes the season 9-18 overall, 3-11 in Ivy play.
Quaker Notemeal
*The 21-point win was Penn's largest margin of victory this season (previously 19, an 80-61 win over NJIT on New Year's Eve).
*Penn's 26-point lead late in the game (80-54) was its biggest against a Division I opponent all season.
*Penn collected 19 steals on Friday night, most by the Quakers against a Division I opponent since they had a staggering 21 against Penn State on January 23, 1982—coincidentally, current head coach
Fran McCaffery's senior year.
*Not surprisingly, Brown's 23 turnovers were an opponent high this season and Penn's 32 points off those turnovers were also a season best.
*Brown scored 27 second-half points, tied for an opponent low this season (originally set by La Salle).
*Penn hit 10 three-point shots, the seventh time this season the Quakers have reached double figures in that category.
*Penn improved to 11-1 this season when shooting a better field-goal percentage than its opponent, 12-3 when outrebounding its opponent, and 7-1 when holding its opponent in the 60s.
*Penn finished the regular season 6-1 on Fridays.
*Senior
Ethan Roberts led Penn with 18 points, giving him 46 in two games against Brown this season.
*Junior
TJ Power once again flirted with a double-double, scoring 17 points and tying for team-high honors with eight rebounds. He also had four steals and two assists, and he knocked down five of his eight three-point shots.
*
Michael Zanoni finished the night with 11 points while freshman
Dalton Scantlebury added 10 and also contributed six boards and three steals. Scantlebury also had the best plus/minus among Penn players, at +28.
*Sophomore
AJ Levine stuffed the stat sheet with eight points, eight rebounds, six assists—which tied for game-high honors—and four steals.
*On a night when ten different players scored, freshman
Jay Jones finished with seven points and junior
Niklas Polonowski drained both of his trey attempts for six.
*In his final game for Brown, Landon Lewis posted a double-double (12 points/11 rebounds) and added four assists and two steals. Luke Paragon was the only other double-figure scorer for the Bears, with 10 points.
How It Happened
Lewis opened the scoring on Brown's first possession Friday night, but it was Penn who played the inspired ball after that as the Quakers scored 12 of the next 14 points and 20 of the next 24 to go in front by a 20-6 score. The lead swelled to as much as 18, at 32-14, and it was still 40-24 as the clock went under two minute left in the first half.
That was when Brown made a run that would bridge the two halves. The Bears scored five in a row on consecutive possessions, sandwiched two free throws between four Penn points, and when Paragon drained a triple at the halftime buzzer the margin was suddenly just 10.
Penn started the second half ice cold, scoring no points in the first three minutes, and Brown took advantage. Paragon led the charge, hitting two of three free throws and then a bucket after that and this was a five-point game.
Brown had two chances to get it to a one-possession margin, but both times the Bears turned it over. Roberts got to the foul line off the second turnover, ending the Penn scoring skid, and then a Zanoni putback of a Levine miss off yet another turnover got the margin back to nine.
Brown wasn't done—yet. Lewis scored inside, then Malcolm Wrisby-Jefferson turned defense to offense with a steal and layup that had Bruno back within five with 15:55 left. The teams then went more than a minute without scoring, Jones finally ending the drought with a pretty little teardrop in the lane.
Jeremiah Jenkins matched that shot with two of his own, but Penn took over from there. Power drilled a pair from downtown 1:06 apart, and then Jones came up with a steal and threw a beautiful one-handed bounce pass to Scantlebury for a dunk behind the Brown defense. That pushed the margin back to double digits, at 58-45, and Brown was calling timeout.
Wrisby-Jefferson scored out of the stoppage, but Brown wouldn't score again for more than three minutes and Penn would take advantage with seven in a row. Overall, it was a 15-2 run for the Quakers and their comfort level was restored at 65-47 with nine minutes left.
The lead got to 20 shortly after that, on a Zanoni curl with 7:45 left, and after Brown scored the next three points the Quakers ripped off an 11-2 run that had them up 80-54 with less than three minutes remaining.
Up Next
Penn will play in the Ivy League Tournament next Saturday and Sunday. The Quakers are the third seed and will face second-seeded Harvard in the second semifinal, at 2 p.m. on ESPNews. The winner moves on to Sunday's final against either top-seeded Yale or fourth-seeded Cornell at noon on ESPN2.
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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