After standout performances this past week, senior guard/forward Ethan Roberts has walked away with four weekly honors, including one on the national stage.
Roberts’ standout week earned him the Lou Henson Award National Player of the Week, the Field of 68 Mid-Major Player of the Week, Ivy League Player of the Week, and Big 5 Player of the Week honors. Roberts played in Penn’s victories over Saint Joseph's and Drexel, the latter of which clinched the team's appearance in the Big 5 championship game.
Every season, the Lou Henson Award is given to the top-performing mid-major player in Division I basketball and is voted on by current and former coaches, athletic directors, and members of the media.
The Field of 68 Network, the Ivy League, and the Big 5 also honored Roberts with a Player of the Week nod.
Roberts is having an explosive start to the season, emerging as one of the top scorers in all of D-I basketball.
Against St. Joe’s on Nov. 17, he scored 31 points — 24 of them in the second half. He added five rebounds, two assists, and three steals as well, helping the Quakers to an 83-74 win and their first against the Hawks since 2019.
He followed that game with a 30-point and eight-rebound masterclass performance in Penn’s 84-68 win at Drexel on Nov. 21, leading the charge of propelling Penn to the Big 5 championship game. In just this week’s two games alone, Roberts shot efficiently from the field at 57.6%, including a 45.5% three-point shooting average and 90% free-throw accuracy.
“It’s just so exciting that we’re all coming together right now, and we got the job done,” Roberts said after the Drexel game.
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Roberts’ recent two games have lifted his season scoring average to 24.6 points per game, the third-highest scoring average in NCAA D-I men's basketball. A fellow Ivy League player sits just behind him in fourth, Cornell guard Cooper Noard.
Roberts has become the third player in program history to have consecutive 30-point games, following 1978 College graduate Keven McDonald in the 1975 Sugar Bowl Classic against Tennessee and against Ohio State and former player Jordan Dingle against Yale and Harvard during the 2021-22 season.
Roberts is scoring at an impressively efficient rate across the team’s nonconference schedule so far. In Penn’s first five games, he shot 47.3% from the field and 44.4% from the three.
“It’s my favorite season I’ve ever played basketball ever,” Roberts said postgame at Drexel.
