Penn basketball swept Dartmouth and Harvard over the weekend at the Palestra. How did the Quakers manage to secure their first two Ivy wins of the season?

The mystique of Philadelphia college basketball has been well-documented – with the Palestra being named the nation’s most “Hallowed Hall” in a December 2014 NCAA.com feature – and that allure makes it quite difficult for local figures to stay away. For Penn men’s basketball, consider Joe Mihalich Jr. the latest victim.

HANOVER, N.H. — Boom. Lights out. So went the end of an closely fought game for Penn women’s basketball at Dartmouth on Saturday night with less than a minute left before the Quakers capped off a 56-41 win in Hanover.

Penn basketball, playing with newfound confidence, continued to move in the right direction by recording its second straight Ivy League win in a 67-57 thrashing of Harvard.

BOSTON — For a minute and half, it looked like it would be a ballgame. But that was all Penn women’s basketball trailed on Friday, leading almost wire-to-wire in a 68-48 rout of Harvard on the road.

It took awhile, but the Quakers are on the board in the 14-game tournament. Penn defeated Dartmouth 71-64 at the Palestra on Friday night to notch their first Ivy League win of the season.

When Wesley Saunders’ final three-point attempt clanked out last March in the first round of the NCAA tournament the Crimson spotlight immediately shifted to Siyani Chambers.

It may not be a triumphant return of a beloved tradition, but the Red and Blue could sure use a triumph or two this weekend.

There seems to be little question that Penn women’s basketball is the team to beat in the Ivy League right now. At 3-0 in conference play, the Quakers are in sole possession of first place in the storied conference and is hot off two double-digit wins at home last weekend.

It was early March when Jake Silpe, in the midst of his second semester as a senior in high school, received some very unexpected news. Jerome Allen, the University of Pennsylvania men’s basketball head coach, had just been fired, with several games still left to play on the Quakers’ schedule. Allen had recruited Silpe to Penn, and once he signed his letter of intent, Silpe was fully under the assumption Allen would be his coach for his college basketball career.

Better late than never. For Penn Athletics, the timeless idiom has never been more true, as several transfer students have found their respective ways to 33rd Street and quickly made an impact on the Quakers’ athletic program.

Penn basketball was handed 23- and 6-point losses by Yale and Brown this weekend. And I was still excited by what I saw.

Dominant. There aren’t too many better words to describe Penn women’s basketball’s weekend.

Behind 26 points, eight rebounds and five blocks from the 6-foot-9 superstar, the Bears held off a feisty Penn squad in a battle of the final two winless Ancient Eight squads, taking an early lead and holding on for a wild 89-83 win.

All season long, Penn basketball's first-year coach Steve Donahue’s mantra has been simple: “We’re trying to build this into a championship program.” On Friday night, he may have gotten a first-hand view of what one looks like.

The Red and Blue will get a chance this weekend to rebound from a tough loss. But with non-conference play having reached its end, the next loss could be devastating. Penn women's basketball (12-3, 1-0 Ivy) will play host to Yale (11-8, 2-0) on Friday and Brown (12-4, 0-2) on Saturday in the Quakers' first Ivy doubleheader of the season.

On non-conference schedule: I thought we had some solid performances. We had some games where we would have liked to have played better and closed it out with some leads and some games.