Are you ready for some Ivy League basketball? Penn and Princeton kick off the annual 14-game tournament at Jadwin Gym this evening. Follow myself, Senior Sports Editor Steven Tydings and Senior Sports Editor-Elect Riley Steele for all the play-by-play action and analysis as the Quakers take on the Tigers:
Penn women's basketball claimed its first Big 5 title on Monday night but an even bigger challenge is on the horizon: a ranked opponent to begin conference play.
After a victory over Hampton on Monday, Princeton is now the No. 22 ranked team in the AP poll, the highest ranking for an Ivy League women's basketball team ever. The Tigers are also undefeated, going 16-0 in nonconference play so far before taking on Penn this Saturday.
The Tigers have been demolishing opponents week by week to start the season. Princeton has not only beaten every team it has faced, the Tigers have also won by an 24.7 point average margin of victory.
Princeton is led by Ivy League Player of the Year favorite Blake Dietrick, a senior guard, along with juniors Annie Tarakchian and Michelle Miller. Each of those three players average double digit points per game and at least 4.7 rebounds per game (Dietrick leads the team in points per contest while Tarakchian leads the squad in rebound).
This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise as the Tigers and Quakers were tied atop the Ancient Eight in the Ivy League Preseason Media Poll and Princeton, led by coach Courtney Banghart, had won four straight Ancient Eight titles before Penn upset them last season.
While Penn's 80-64 victory over Princeton came at Jadwin Gym last season, it will be tough for the Red and Blue to pull off the same upset on Princeton's home court. The Tigers are 4-0 at Jadwin this year, winning by an average of 38.5 points per game (highly skewed by a 71-point victory over Portland State).
All but one of the Tigers' wins this season have been by double digits, although Princeton's last three games have been within 15 points. In terms of common opponents, Princeton defeated Drexel and Hampton, two squads that edged the Red and Blue this season.
If you want to read more about the strong program that Banghart has build at Princeton, Matthew Snyder of Slam Magazine profiled the Tigers earlier this season. Check that out here.
Are you ready for some Big 5 basketball? Join me and Sports Editor Holden McGinnis as we give you all the play-by-play action and analysis from the Quakers' matchup against the Explorers.
Welcome back, Penn fans! After a 13-day layoff, the Quakers are looking to keep their three-game winning streak alive against SEC foe Vanderbilt. Join myself and Senior Sports Editor-Elect Riley Steele as we give you all the action.
Okay, so you get into Penn early decision: It is a great day! You run and tell your family, your friends ... and a player who used to play for your favorite basketball team and is now playing against it?
Evan Turner used to play for the Philadelphia 76ers until he was traded last season and returned to play in Philadelphia for the Boston Celtics on Monday night. While fans booed him when he was on the court, Turner was well-received before the game by the 76ers fans.
Turner recalled seeing one young fan who always cheered him on when he played for the Sixers. Another one of his fans came up to him to tell him she was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania.
"That was cool," Turner said. "It's on you to see what you're going to take from it. I pay attention to the positive."
The only question that remains is what the former Ohio State star thinks about the Red and Blue.
The awards just keep rolling in for Penn basketball's freshmen.
Freshman guard Sam Jones was named Ivy Rookie of the Week this week, becoming the fourth member of the program to achieve the honor thus far this season.
Fellow freshmen Antonio Woods, Mike Auger and Darnell Foreman already have the award under their belts in their young careers.
The sharp-shooting Jones earned the award after absolutely going off in Penn’s recent victory over Marist. In that contest, he went 7-of-10 from the field and 5-of-6 from three-point range to drop 19 points.
The Red and Blue are riding a three-game winning streak, and they largely have their freshmen to thank for that. Jones and the rest of the rookies will have their next chance to impress next Monday against Vanderbilt.
Three years ago, Duke Lacroix was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year. It was an auspicious start to one of the most prolific careers in the history of Penn men’s soccer.
Now, Lacroix has bookended his fantastic career with prestigious awards, having been named second-team All-Region. It is the first time a member of the program has gotten the honor since 2011.
Despite an up-and-down season for the Red and Blue, Lacroix was a leader for the Quakers throughout his senior campaign, posting career highs in both goals and points.
“He’s clearly one of the best players I’ve ever had the opportunity to coach at Penn or elsewhere,” coach Rudy Fuller said.
What a way to go out.
It isn't just Ivy League college newspapers paying attention to Ancient Eight men's basketball: It's the whole NCAA.
Following Yale's last-second victory over Connecticut, the Ancient Eight has gotten some national buzz for its performance so far this season. Adding to the hype was Columbia's competitive performance against No. 1 Kentucky, as the Lions gave the undefeated Wildcats their toughest run yet.
What does this mean for Penn? Well, it means that Ivy play won't be a cakewalk for the Quakers, as teams like 7-1 Harvard, 8-3 Yale and 5-3 Columbia will provide some challenges for Red and Blue come 2015. It also means that wins by Penn in conference play will be seen as more impressive on a national stage.
The Quakers get their chance to make news with the tougher portion of their nonconference schedule beginning soon as they travel to Vanderbilt, an SEC foe. Penn also has three Big 5 games left, facing La Salle on Dec. 30 before taking on Villanova and St. Joe's on consecutive weekends in January.
Penn President Amy Gutmann was spotted in Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie's box on Sunday night for the Eagles-Cowboys game.
Yup, the Penn president hanging out with at a football game in the owner's box along with actor Bradley Cooper. Sounds like a pretty good night... if the Eagles hadn't lost 38-27. Womp womp.
Anywhere, here's some photographic evidence from the web where you can see Dr. Gutmann right in the center.
A-Gut sighting at the Eagles game with Jeffrey Lurie and Bradley Cooper @dailypenn pic.twitter.com/DfeVb8c0Vp
— Zachary Taub (@z_taub) December 15, 2014Bradley Cooper in the owners box #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/u524t9hARf
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 15, 2014H/T to Zachary Taub and Brian Stelter for the screengrabs and the heads-up. You are the real MVP.
But seriously, is Gutmann an Eagles fan? How does she know Lurie? Is she now best friends with Bradley Cooper?
These are the questions that will rattle our brains for decades.
Winners of two in a row on the road, Penn basketball looks to extend its winning streak to three as it returns home to the Palestra to take on Marist. Join myself and staff writer Seamus Powers as we give you all the action:
After helping the Quakers to their first two wins of the season, it is no surprise that freshman guard Darnell Foreman was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week on Monday.
In Penn’s win against Navy, Foreman notched nine points, two steals, and two blocks in 28 minutes of play.
Foreman followed up this impressive performance with 11 points, eight rebounds, four assists, and two steals against Binghamton, leading the team to a 79-70 victory.
This recognition makes Foreman the third young member of Penn’s basketball team to be awarded this title. He joins guard Antonio Woods and forward Mike Auger as freshmen receiving the honor.
Penn hosts Marist at the Palestra Tuesday night where they will attempt to win their third straight non-conference game for the first time since the 2006-2007 season.
After an impressive start to his rookie campaign, it looks like Foreman as well as his fellow freshman teammates are intent are bringing Penn basketball back to the top.
Former Penn assistant basketball coach Ray Edelman has died, Dick Weiss reports.
Edelman was on the staff of the 1970-71 Red and Blue squad that made the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight.
That Ivy champion squad went 28-1 on the year, including a 14-0 mark in conference. Former athletic director Steve Bilsky was a key contributor to the team.
Apart from his time at Penn, Edelman also had coaching stints at Penn State, Haverford and Oregon. On Twitter, Weiss commented that he was a "great teaching mind."
It is no secret that Big 5 basketball has more than its fair share of tradition.
During Temple’s 58-57 win over La Salle at the Palestra on Saturday, fans revived one of Philadelphia basketball’s more light-hearted rituals: Throwing streamers.
For the first time since 2006, fans celebrated each team’s first basket of the game by throwing colorful streamers on to the court, temporarily halting action.
From 1955 to 1985, when all Big 5 games were played at the Palestra, the streamers were a part of every game. However, the NCAA cracked down on the practice in 1985, and the chromatic custom has remained largely dormant since, only reappearing for special occasions in 1994 and 2006.
Saturday’s matchup certainly deserved the special treatment: the two teams came in with matching 4-3 records and played a tight, back-and forth battle that wasn’t decided until the final seconds.
Temple guard Quenton DeCosey led all scorers with 19 points, 15 of which came in the first half.
Coach John Gianninihad nothing but praise for his star freshman.
“He’s really hard to guard,” Giannini said. “You need some guys who can make something out of nothing. DeCosey is one of those guys.”
Powered by DeCosey’s scoring, Temple took a 35-29 lead into halftime. However, La Salle used a 13-1 spurt at the beginning of the second half to turn the contest into a nail-biter.
However, trailing 56-54 with 18 seconds remaining, La Salle guard Jordan Price missed a game-tying jumper, allowing Temple to ice the game with a pair of Josh Brown free throws.
So, in a game which started in traditional fashion, the ending was also reminiscent of Big 5 battles of old.
Temple, which defeated Penn 76-67 on Nov. 25, moves to 5-3 and will play host to Towson on Wednesday.
La Salle drops to 4-4 and will square off against Drexel on Saturday. The Explorers will face Penn on Dec. 30 in their next Big 5 tilt.
Perhaps the steamers will make an encore appearance.
Every year during the first week of December, the Penn men’s and women’s swim teams embark on cross-country trek to Kenyon College, the alma mater of assistant coach Marc Christian, to attend the Total Performance Invitational. Awaiting the teams in Gambier, Ohio, is fast competition from seven Division III programs.
Before the teams’ bus pulls into the Holiday Inn parking lot in Ohio, however, they must endure eight (and sometimes nine) hours of traveling through the rolling hills of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains and the sleep-inducing landscape of Ohio’s monotonous expanses of cornfields.
Usually by this point in the season, both the men’s and women’s teams have already survived a handful of long bus rides, such as the five hours to UConn or the four hours to Cornell. But this season, neither the men’s nor women’s team has travelled more than one hour away by bus. The 13 freshman competing in this weekend’s meet didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.
Here is a timeline of events for this year's bus trip.
1:10 The bus pulls out onto Walnut Street with all 52 swimmers and 3 coaches situated aboard.
1:16 Machete Kills comes onto the bus’s TV monitors. Coach Mike Schnur is practically giggling in anticipation. Meanwhile, a collective groan is heard from most of the women’s team. Women’s team captain Lauryn Brown yells, “It’s a man’s world!”
1:28 Sofia Vergara’s name rolls across the screen during the opening credits. Several members of the men’s team cheer.
2:59 Applause breaks out throughout the bus when the movie ends. The men’s team claps to express their satisfaction with the movie; the women’s team claps out of relief that they won’t have to sit through any more gratuitous killing.
3:01 Not even two minutes have passed before the next movie, Vision Quest, is playing from the TV monitors.
4:47 The team pulls into a rest stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania for a quick bathroom and stretch break. Only four hours to go!
5:00 Chaos ensues when the coaches begin distributing Jimmy Johns lunch boxes. Apparently the cookies inside the boxes are problematic: no one wants to get stuck with oatmeal raisin when chocolate chip is on the line. “Oatmeal raisin is cruel and unusual punishment,” says senior Emily Ashton.
5:28 22 Jump Street begins playing; a calm falls over the bus. It is unclear if the quiet is due to the movie or the fact that everyone is busy eating.
7:00 PMWSD crosses through West Virginia into Ohio, the third and final state of the road trip. Only two more hours until Gambier, Ohio.
7:22 As the credits of 22 Jump Street roll, one of the coaches requests to turn on the Air Conditioning. Bad move.
7:45 Things start getting weird. The team is entering its seventh hour on the bus and in the back of the bus there are three swimmers to most seats. In the last twenty minutes, the temperature on the bus has dropped at least five degrees. People start pulling on their winter coats.
8:12 Junior Meaghan Kwarcinski enters page five (single-spaced) of the paper she has been writing for the duration of the bus trip.
8:24 Phone service goes out. We must be getting close to our destination.
8:35 The bus unexpectedly swerves. Someone yells “turn up!”
9:15 The last forty minutes of the ride seem to take as long as the previous seven hours aboard the bus. That might be the delirium kicking in. By 9:15, the bus pulls into the Holiday Inn parking lot.
25 Columbia football players sent a letter to the school's President and Board of Trustees alleging that coach Pete Mangurian has mishandled players' concussions as well as other abuses, the Columbia Spectator reports.
Accordiing to the Spectator, the letter, which has since been withdrawn, says that Mangurian also created rifts between underclassmen and upperclassmen while being physically abusive.
Alumni have already called for Mangurian's firing after a tenure that has seen many bumps in the road. In May 2013, many players were found to have racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic tweets shortly after a player was accused of a hate crime.
Mangurian's tenure as the Lions' coach hasn't gone well on the field either. The team has lost 21 straight games over his three seasons at the helm, consistently finishing at the bottom of the Ivy League. Columbia has lost to Penn every season since 1996.
And the winner is...
@PennBasketball's Jerome Allen, who takes home the 'Yeah-a-Cup' plaque:
#CampOutForHungerGames pic.twitter.com/9m1VfJ1ZwE
— Preston & Steve Show (@PrestonSteve933) December 2, 2014The Preston and Steve morning radio show from local Philadelphia station 93.3 WMMR kicked off the 16th annual Camp Out for Hunger campaign this week, and the star of the show was no other than Penn basketball coach Jerome Allen.
Allen proved he’s still got the magic touch, sinking buckets left and right in a “Pop a Shot” arcade competition between the City 6 basketball coaches to raise money for the non-profit food bank Philabundance. Unsurprisingly, he took first place.
Although Allen is five years removed from his professional playing career and 20 years removed from his time as a member of a talented Penn team, he showed no rust, take home the golden “Yeah-A-Cup” plaque.
One of the greatest Penn basketball players of all time, Allen claimed three Ivy titles during his playing time for the Quakers. He also holds the Penn records for assists (504) and steals (166).
But out of all the accomplishments in Allen’s career, winning the golden cup plaque has got to be near the top.
Ivy League basketball has seen some surprises early in the 2014-15 season. Harvard lost to Holy Cross on a neutral court. Columbia lost its top scorer from a year ago before the season began and hasn’t missed a beat. Cornell has already won more games than last season.
Senior Sports Editor Steven Tydings and Sports Editor Holden McGinnis talk about what has been the biggest surprise in the Ancient Eight this year.
Steven Tydings: I’d say Harvard’s early defeat, but the Crimson bounced back. What has thrown me off guard has been Princeton’s early season struggles. The Tigers lost a lot with the graduation of T.J. Bray but with freshman Amir Bell coming in to run the point and other players like Spencer Weisz set to step up, most people expected Princeton to hold it together.
But so far, the Tigers surely haven’t. After taking down Rider to start the year, they lost five straight games before a win on Sunday. Those losses included some stronger opponents like UTEP but there is one loss that is truly inexplicable: Incarnate Word.
Seriously, Incarnate Word? A program that has been in Division I for just two years won at Jadwin Gym. This was a shocker to say the least. Princeton may bounce back but the Tigers early season struggles are pretty surprising, at least to the extent they’ve been hurting so far.
Holden McGinnis: Sure, Princeton’s loss to Incarnate Word was surprising, but the Tigers weren’t particularly a title contender to begin the year — placing 4th in the preseason poll. The Tigers were a bit of a wild card, particularly after the graduation of Bray and a strong crop of seniors, and they could very well turn things around.
For me, I think the biggest surprise has to come from Columbia. When we heard that Alex Rosenberg was going to miss the season and withdraw from school due to injury, it seemed clear that Columbia was no longer going to be the same threat to knock off Harvard and Yale as it was last year. It’s tough to replace an elite scorer like Rosenberg, especially given the talent the Lions graduated, but Columbia has barely missed a step.
Sure, Tuesday’s loss to lowly Loyola (Md.) was ugly, but this is a team that most analysts wrote off a few weeks ago, yet its started the season 4-2. They may not have the chops to hang with Harvard and Yale atop the conference, but the Lions aren’t a team to sneeze at this season. When you lose a first-team All-Ivy talent and can still pull off some nonconference wins in the aftermath, it says a lot about the coaches and the program.
ST: The Lions simply haven’t played a very tough schedule so far. I have a tough time seeing Columbia excelling in Ivy play without Rosenberg to draw fouls on every opponent and take the final shot. There is an awful lot riding on the shoulders of junior Maodo Lo and I’m not sure he’s up for the task.
HM: They may be unable to handle the very top of the conference, I grant you that, but Columbia is still ahead of around half the Ivy League. For something that’s supposed to be a lost season, that’s more than enough. Princeton never had the preseason hype to begin with, a few bad nonconference losses is just par for the course.
Penn women's basketball played just one game last week but it was more than enough for one of the Quakers' freshmen to receive Ivy League recognition.
Freshman forward Michelle Nwokedi was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week after a 17-point, 14-rebound performance in the Red and Blue's 74-39 win over New Hampshire.
Nwokedi was dominant against the Wildcats, setting the tone early with her three-point shooting and presence in the paint. She went 3-for-5 from beyond the arc while grabbing six offensive rebounds. In comparison, New Hampshire only had 10 offensive rebounds.
Nwokedi also had three blocks in the game, establishing herself as the center off the bench in Penn's 2-3 zone. Now she and the rest of the Red and Blue will look to build off the New Hampshire victory when they travel to Lafayette on Tuesday.
Though Penn women's basketball may be just four games into the season (as of Monday night), there's been plenty to talk about and analyze as the team looks to repeat on its Ivy title.
The Quakers' opening loss to No. 4 Tennessee has skewed their numbers somewhat, but nevertheless, there's plenty of crazy trends inside the stats.
Without further ado, some telling numbers from Penn's first four games.
40: Field goals allowed against the Lady Vols in the team's opener. The past three games combined? 43.
44: Points given up in the first half of their past three games combined, after allowing Tennessee to score 47. That defensive intensity has put the Quakers ahead by an average of 18.7 points at the half in their last three.
25.7%: Shooting percentage of teams other than Tennessee against the Quakers this season.
All right - you get it - the defense has been phenomenal against teams not based in Knoxville.
Coach Mike McLaughlin has always built his team around strong defensive principles and it has certainly been true this year. In his four prior years at the helm, Penn has never finished worse than 2nd in the Ivy League in scoring defense.
How about the offensive side?
19.5: Points per game scored by the freshman class, most among any year. Behind guards Beth Brzozowski and Anna Ross and forward Michelle Nwokedi, the Quakers have a loaded class of freshmen. All three have found key roles in the rotation from game one. Is there a fifth-straight Big 5 Rookie of the Year in McLaughlin's latest class? Only time will tell.
22.6: Nwokedi's per-minute scoring scaled to Sydney Stipanovich's playing time. The freshman forward has been wildly efficient in limited minutes, putting up seven points in just three minutes against La Salle before dumping in a double-double (17 pts, 14 reb) in 20 minutes against New Hampshire. It's clear that Nwokedi will be a key part of the rotation moving forward.
30.8: Points per game from the bench. That's more than the 30.0 put up by the starters, despite the bench players only seeing 44.5% of the overall minutes. It's an encouraging sign to see continued offensive efficiency when the starters leave the floor.
10.0: Not a single Penn player is averaging double digit points per game, making the Quakers the only team in the Ivy League without a scorer at that level. The Red and Blue still have work to do on the offensive end to keep up with high-scoring Princeton, but between a healthy Keiera Ray, Stipanovich, Nwokedi and senior captain Kara Bonenberger there are plenty of scoring options.
Other observations: The team's top four per-game scorers (Ray, Stipanovich, Nwokedi and Bonenberger) are all from different recruiting classes. Every game has had a different leading scorer and a different leading rebounder.
Star junior cross country runner Thomas Awad has been making his case for top Penn athlete for some time now, but it was only two weekends ago that he broke out on a national stage. In an extremely gutsy performance at NCAA Nationals, Awad persevered through an Achilles injury and finished 27th overall, earning All-American honors.
With the current upward trajectory of Awad’s career, it is easy to get caught up in what he has done lately. However, to say that his recent success has come out of nowhere would be severely nearsighted, as many of his performances from last year formed his foundation.
With this in mind, let’s turn back the clock to around this time last year when the Quakers’ standout runner got his first shot at national recognition in cross country.
After finishing third in Ivy Heptagonals and fifth in NCAA Regionals in only his sophomore year, Awad knew that expectations going into NCAA Nationals were going to be high. But instead of playing down expectations, he sought to represent the rest of his team with a strong performance.
“I think a top 40 finish would be great,” Awad said. “This year was really good for us.
“I want everyone to know that Penn is going to be a force to be reckoned with in years to come.”
He cited his freshman trip to outdoor track Nationals as a key piece of experience that he would attempt to utilize on his Nov. 23 trip to Terra Haute, Ind. in 2013.
“I don’t think I’m in over my head,” Awad said.
And when it came down to race time, he certainly was not in over his head. However, a 177th place finish out of 254 — while respectable — was far from what he had expected.
It would take him another year to truly make a splash at Nationals, but when he did, it was that much sweeter for the Red and Blue’s cornerstone runner.
“I’m relieved to live up to the expectations,” Awad said after earning All-American status this year. “It’s a pretty big step looking forward.”
This year, Awad was Penn’s lone representative at Nationals, but that was not the case a year ago.
After capping a breakout freshman campaign with a 23rd place finish at last year’s Regionals, current sophomore Cleo Whiting also qualified for Nationals. She delivered a comparable result to Awad, finishing 184th out of 254.
Although a battle with injuries prevented Whiting from making another fully healthy run at Nationals, she was able to finish a strong 19th at this year’s Regionals.
Each athlete will look to carry their strong 2014 finish into winter track season, which starts this Saturday at the Lehigh Invitational.
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