ITHACA, N.Y. — Just one more win stands between Penn men’s basketball and a spot in March Madness.
In the semifinal of the Ivy League tournament, No. 3 Penn was victorious in a 62-60 overtime thriller over No. 2 Harvard, punching a ticket to the tournament final with a chance to clinch an NCAA tournament berth. The two foes split their regular season series, which was decided by a combined four points. The Quakers’ (17-11, 9-5 Ivy) win over the Crimson (17-12, 10-4 Ivy) two weeks ago sealed their Ivy Madness bid.
On Saturday, the Quakers were without their senior captain and guard/forward Ethan Roberts, who announced that he would be out due to a concussion.
“We would not be here without Ethan,” junior forward TJ Power said after the game. “His mark is all over this playoff run. To get a win and extend this season, personally, I’m doing it for him, too.”
With less than a minute in regulation, senior forward Michael Zanoni hit a deep two to tie the game at 53-53, and misses from both sides sent the game to overtime. With 17 seconds left in extra time, the score was once again tied 60-60.
In the final seconds of the game, sophomore guard AJ Levine dribbled up the court and blew past the Harvard defender to dart to the rim. With Harvard guard Ben Eisendrath looking to get a block from behind, Levine hung in the air and made the lay-up of the season, sending the Quakers to their first Ivy Madness final appearance since 2018.
“I saw a clear path to the rim, and I’d missed a couple earlier in the game, but I knew what the stakes were,” Levine said. “I knew there’s no way I was missing that to send us to a chip, so I just attacked the rim and went and finished.”
Here’s how the Quakers managed to come out on top.
Suffocating first-half defense
Penn shut down the Crimson in the first period, giving the Ivy League’s best defense a taste of its own medicine. Harvard guard Robert Hinton — who was a star in the teams’ last matchup with 20 points on only two point field goals — was held to just two points in the first. The Quakers also forced nine first-half turnovers on a squad that averages just under 11 a game.
Power led the charge defensively with two steals and a block in the first half to match his offensive onslaught. He finished the night matching his career high in steals with four.
The defensive impact was shown all over the stat sheet as the Quakers locked up the Crimson from three-point range — allowing only four of the 15 threes to connect. From the field, Harvard was limited to a sub 40% shooting percentage, connecting 11 of their 29 shots. The Red and Blue were disciplined, not allowing a single shooting foul.
The Quakers’ stifling defense can be credited for their 30-26 lead at the half.
Offensive production, even through physicality
With Roberts out, there was a big offensive gap to make up, and Power led the way. In the first half, he connected on three of his seven attempts from beyond the arc and made up nearly half of the Quakers’ points at the halftime break.
Harvard brought the playoff energy to the court with a lot of physicality, even though the box score may not show it. Just minutes into the first half, Power briefly left the game after a tough hit before returning shortly after. Levine was seen constantly in tough situations, grabbing opponents’ ribs. Freshman guard Jay Jones, after being a major contributor off the bench at the end of regulation and beginning of overtime, also left the game clutching his leg. He is set to return for tomorrow’s final.
By the end of the night, three Quakers notched in the double digits — Power, Levine, and senior guard Cam Thrower, who started for Roberts.
Supporting cast puts on a show
Coming out of the locker room, the Crimson came out swinging — going on a 10-2 run in the first five minutes of action in the second half. The Quakers didn’t see the same success through the beginning of the second half, and the Crimson went up 36-32 with 15 minutes left to play.
After a Levine bucket, the entire roster got involved to fight back. Thrower hit a major three-pointer to tie the game 44-44, with eight minutes left of play. After Harvard’s Eisendarth hit a tough shot over Jones to give the Crimson a 53-51 lead with just over a minute to go, it was Zanoni who hit a timely jumper to make it a tie ball game with just 55 seconds left.
“We started pushing different buttons, running different stuff, but I thought our ball movement and our people movement and our screening was just way better,” coach Fran McCaffery said.
In overtime, the Quakers came out firing, and the team as a whole shot more efficiently — making three of their six field goals. Harvard didn’t back down, with guard Tey Barbour scoring five of his team’s total seven points in overtime.
From Jones’ three-point play at the start of overtime to a timely dunk from junior forward/center Augustus Gerhart to a loose-ball dive and possession gain from sophomore forward Lucas Lueth, numerous Quakers were involved in the series of winning plays in the final five.
With 20 seconds left, Levine then faked a handoff to drive to the rim for the game-winner. This is Levine’s second big clutch play this season after a game-winning stop in Penn’s historic win over Princeton.
“[The] second half didn’t start the way we would have liked … But we kept our composure, and there were a number of game-winning plays,” McCaffery said. “Obviously, we looked at AJ’s bucket, but Lucas Lueth diving on the ball, calling a timeout — those are game-winning plays … I just can’t say enough about the number of different guys who contributed in this game.”
Penn will take on No. 1 Yale at 12 p.m. tomorrow in the tournament final to compete for its first crown since 2018.
