Ivy Weekend in Store as Men's Basketball Hosts Brown (Fri), Yale (Sat)
The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team is back at home for a pair of games this weekend, hosting Brown and Yale in the first true Ivy League weekend of the season. The Bears will be at The Palestra on Friday at 7 p.m., with the Ivy-leading Bulldogs in town the following night for a 6 p.m. tipoff.
A reminder that the Ivy League is paired with ESPN and you will be able to find all Penn home games, as well as road Ivy games and select non-conference road games, on ESPN+ again this season with the same high broadcast quality you've come to expect. ESPN+ is a subscription-based service that offers monthly and yearly packages. Click here to subscribe to ESPN+!
Penn fans can listen to all of the 2024-25 Penn's men's basketball season through the Quaker Audio Network, a free Internet-based audio streaming service. Matt Leon will be on the play-by-play call for both of this weekend's games, with Brad Fadem back providing analysis. To access the Quaker Audio Network, simply type www.pennathletics.com/audio into your computer or device.
* Penn is hosting the Bears and the Bulldogs on the same weekend for the third straight year and the 64th time overall since the start of Ivy League play in 1956-57.
*Overall, Penn has swept this home weekend 41 times (most recently in 2022-23), split the weekend 18 times (most recently in 2019-20), and been swept just four times (including last year).
* Friday's meeting is the 145th between the Quakers and the Bears, with Penn holding a 114-30 lead.
*Brown earned a season sweep last year, its first since 2015. Bruno gained a 70-61 win over the Quakers in Providence on February 2, then escaped The Palestra with a 71-64 victory two weeks later.
*Prior to that, Penn had won five in a row over the Bears and ten of the last 11, the outlier being a 75-63 loss here at The Palestra on February 14, 2020.
*Saturday's meeting is the 241st between the Quakers and the Bulldogs, with Penn holding a 153-87 lead in the series.
*Yale has held the slightest of edges in this series of late, thanks to a season sweep last year when Eli downed Penn in on February 3 in New Haven, 74-58, then came back 13 days later and won 76-62 here at The Palestra.
*Prior to last season, Penn and Yale had split the regular-season series six straight years. In fact, when the Bulldogs won last year's game at The Palestra it ended a streak of 11 straight games that saw the home team victorious.
*The teams also split a pair of Ivy League Tournament semifinal meetings during that six-year span of splits, Penn winning in 2018 here at The Palestra (80-57) and Yale winning in 2022 at Harvard (67-61).
The Quakers are in the midst of playing four Ivy League games in a row at home. They beat Columbia last Saturday, 93-78, and then after this weekend they are back at home next Friday night for a matchup against archrival Princeton.
Double-doubles posted this season by junior Ethan Roberts, after he went for 15 points and 10 rebounds—including the last board of the game—last Saturday against Columbia.
Players who reached double figures in the scoring column in last Saturday's 93-78 win over Columbia: Sam Brown (career-high 30), (15), George Smith (14), Nick Spinoso (13), and Niklas Polonowski (11); it marked the first time this season the Quakers had five double-digit scorers in the same game.
Three-point baskets hit by last Saturday against the Lions, tied for second on the program's individual single-game list with five others; from that group, Brown is just the third to go 8-of-10 in the game.
Double-figure scoring streak currently held by ; he has averaged 18.6 ppg during the run, which includes five 20-point games and started with a collegiate-high 33-point outing against Navy on November 29.
Points-per-game difference for from non-conference play (8.0 ppg) to Ivy League play (19.0 ppg); he has 76 points in four Ivy games after scoring just 104 in 13 non-conference games.
Penn players who have started at least one game this season; no one has started all 17 but , and lead the way with 16 each.
Penn's margin of victory in each of its last two games (82-67 at Harvard, 93-78 vs. Columbia); they are the Quakers' largest wins so far this season.
Overall points-per-game average for , good for fifth among Ivy League players.
Three-pointers knocked down by Penn in last Saturday's win over Columbia, a program record against a Division I opponent; the Quakers have hit 29 treys in their last two games and have reached double figures five times in the last seven games after doing it just once in the first 10.
Points-per-game averages for Brown and Roberts in Ivy play, respectively, good for third and fourth behind Princeton's Xaivian Lee (23.3) and Dartmouth's Ryan Cornish (21.3).
48.3 - Penn's 3FG percentage over the last two games (29 of 60); the Red and Blue went 11-25 from beyond the arc at Harvard on January 20, then 18-35 five days later against Columbia.
50.5 - Penn's overall field-goal percentage over the last two games (56 of 111); the Quakers shot 29-57 vs. the Crimson and 27-54 against the Lions.
59 - Points scored by Polonowski over the last seven games (8.4 ppg), after he scored just seven over the Quakers' first nine contests (0.8).
For the latest on Penn men's basketball, follow @PennMBB on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and on the web at PennAthletics.com.
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