The first Penn-Princeton affair of the year did not feature the high stakes of past meetings. Each team had a 2-2 Ivy League record coming in.
But for all the talk of rebuilding, Penn has not fallen as far as Princeton. The Quakers' 70-65 victory gave them a winning mark in the Ivy League and pushed the Tigers (5-15, 2-3 Ivy) further into the conference doldrums as their slump now approaches four years.
"Going forward, any win we get I think is going to be a close one," Quakers coach Glen Miller said. "We're just going to have to grind it out."
Grinding it out is the norm against the methodical and deliberate Princeton offense, a complex series of motion and cuts. It posed a problem for Penn from the outset.
Freshman Harrison Gaines started at point guard, but struggled on defense and committed four fouls quickly. Similarly, junior forward Andreas Schreiber, who had a breakout game against Cornell on Saturday, started but played just seven minutes and scored no points.
But in Gaines' stead, juniors Kevin Egee and Aron Cohen combined to outscore him 29-0.
"It is a game where it's difficult to play freshmen who have never played against that type of system, and I think that showed up with Harrison Gaines," Miller said. "Even [Schreiber] was not ready to play against that style."
The Quakers (8-14, 3-2) shot just 39 percent and put up a typically poor 5-for-19 effort from three-point distance. But they worked their way to the free-throw line 36 times and hit a surprising 31 of those shots.
The game was called tightly the entire way, with 52 fouls whistled in total. Undoubtedly the most significant ones were the four called in quick succession at game's end.
With 10 seconds left and Penn holding a 64-63 lead, Noah Savage airmailed a wide-open three-pointer. Remy Cofield came down with the defensive board. The Tigers' Zach Finley grabbed at Cofield, drawing a swift reaction from Penn captain Brian Grandieri.
"Out of character for me . Maybe I said something, maybe I didn't," Grandieri said. "Thank God it didn't cost us."
The technicals to Grandieri and Finley cancelled out, and Cofield hit two free throws from Finley's personal foul. That gave Penn a 66-63 lead, but Princeton got the ball back.
However, the Tigers never got off a final attempt. Senior Noah Savage committed a technical foul seconds later when he tied up with Jack Eggleston. Eggleston gave Penn a four-point lead to seal the game.
"He got a wide-open shot," first-year Princeton coach Sydney Johnson said of Savage. "Some nonsense broke out later on, and that was on our part. It's unfortunate how the game ended, and I certainly apologize on behalf of our players and our university."
Princeton shot 50 percent but was plagued by foul trouble. Savage, Finley and Kyle Koncz - three of the team's starting five - fouled out, and each was limited to under 30 minutes.
Princeton took an early lead, but Penn never trailed after two Justin Reilly free throws put it up 20-19 in the first half. The Tigers went into the locker room down 35-30 at halftime, never fell behind by more than 10 and closed the gap to 62-61 before two Eggleston free throws gave Penn a three-point lead with 1:42 left.
"You've got to give credit to the Quakers for taking care of the home floor," Johnson said.
By the time the Quakers left the Palestra, the evening's steady sleet had given way to a drizzle, a fitting ending for a season that got a bit less cloudy as well.
