Penn Athletics informed basketball coach Jerome Allen that he will be fired after five and a half seasons as Penn basketball’s head coach once the season is over, a source confirmed Saturday afternoon.

There’s no place like home. Penn basketball has been desperately searching for a victory for exactly a month now, losing five straight games on the road with only a brief return to the Palestra in mid-February.

When Penn basketball met Dartmouth at the Palestra on Jan. 30, the Quakers picked up their first Ivy win of the season largely because they limited Big Green guard Alex Mitola to six points. On Saturday, the Red and Blue were nowhere near as lucky. In a game that featured 11 lead changes, Dartmouth rode 15 second-half points from Mitola and managed to surmount Penn's largest lead of the game with a clutch 17-6 run late in the contest, one that allowed the Big Green to pull away with a 67-62 win.

Penn men’s basketball started Friday with the announcement that junior captain and leading scorer Tony Hicks was been suspended for the weekend’s games against Harvard and Dartmouth. Matters only became worse from there. The Quakers suffered a 69-46 slaughter at the hands of the four-time defending champion Crimson at Lavietes Pavilion Friday night, as Harvard won its 7th straight contest and Penn coach Jerome Allen recorded his 100th loss at the helm of the program. Wesley Saunders led the way for the Crimson (18-5, 8-1 Ivy) with a game-high 15 points while shooting 77.8 percent from the field, and Steve Moundou-Missi added 14 points to go along with four offensive rebounds. Playing without Hicks, who averages 13.0 points per game, the Quakers (7-15, 2-6) committed just three turnovers in the first half and entered the intermission down, 31-24, in large part due to 14 early second-chance points for the Crimson. The Red and Blue managed to cut the lead down to 31-28 with 17:23 remaining in the second half, but after that point, the tide turned for good.

Well, this is getting pretty familiar. On a snowy Boston night at a sold-out Lavietes Pavillion, the Quakers were handed another humbling loss by Harvard, a 69-46 defeat that emphasized just how far Penn is from the Ancient Eight’s top tier. It was the fourth consecutive loss for the Quakers, with each defeat coming by at least 16 points.

Penn basketball junior guard Tony Hicks has been suspended by the program for this weekend's Ivy doubleheader against Harvard and Dartmouth, Penn Athletics announced on Friday.

Yale men’s basketball came into the Palestra in first place in the Ivy League. And for 40 minutes, the Elis certainly looked the part. Penn basketball stood little chance against first-place Yale, falling 75-48 in the Friday night affair.

What’s the cure for a hangover? Penn basketball is in  need of some relief after following up big Friday victories on its first two Ivy weekends of the season with equally deflating losses the day after. The Quakers (7-12, 3-6 Ivy) will take a crack at finding a cure on their own floor when they host Yale and Brown for a back-to-back at the Palestra. Last Friday, the Quakers took advantage of a second-half rally to stun Cornell in Ithaca, winning, 71-69, on a floater by junior guard Tony Hicks with only four seconds left. Saturday, though, Hicks and pretty much all of his teammates — save for freshman forward Sam Jones — went MIA.

Columbia obliterated Penn basketball, 83-56, at Levien Gymnasium, using 10 first-half three-pointers and a dominant offensive performance to run Penn out of the gym.

It's Tony Hicks' world and the rest of us are just paying rent. Despite falling behind by 12 to begin the game and never leading until under a minute remained, Penn basketball rode the junior guard's 20 second half points and game-winning jumper with four seconds remaining to its sixth consecutive win over Cornell, 71-69. The Red and Blue looked overwhelmed from the onset.

That was ugly... I mean really ugly. There were no redeeming qualities for Penn basketball’s blowout loss at home against Harvard.

It means that with the game on the line and Alex Mitola in possession of the ball, it wasn’t Dartmouth celebrating a win: It was Penn and that’s something to hang your hat on, at least for one day.

Before Saturday night, I did not know what a Big 5 win looked, sounded, tasted, smelled or felt like. Nor did the majority of people with whom I associate.

A trip to Ithaca is never pleasant this time of year due to its lack of cellphone service and subarctic conditions.

For a moment, it looked as if Penn basketball had turned a corner when it gave then-No. 5 Villanova a serious scare at home on Saturday. Apparently not. Playing to a mostly-empty Palestra crowd, the Quakers came out sleepwalking against Monmouth and paid dearly.

With Penn basketball approaching the midway point in its season, fans and opposing coaches alike seem to think they know what Penn is made of. But the advanced stats tell the whole story.

There will always be those who are staunch defenders of anti-tournament model for the Ancient Eight, but that’s exactly what it is: ancient.