U Penn Basketball: Loss drops Quakers to 0-2 in Ivy League

By Chris Boughman | Jan 14, 2017

The University of Pennsylvania Quakers (6-7, 0-2) played host to the defending Ivy league champion Yale Bulldogs (9-5, 1-0) on Friday evening.

Penn attempted to halt a 4 game home losing streak to Yale at the Palestra, but the Bulldogs proved to be the victor with a 68-60 win.

Penn came into this game looking for their 1st Ivy league win of the season. Unfortunately, they had a date with the defending champs. The Quakers didn’t exactly get off to the start they had hoped falling behind 7-0 early in the first half. However, with the solid play of Freshman AJ Brodeur, the Quakers would charge their way back into the game. The deficit would fall to as much as 9 points, but Yale would only cling onto a 2 point lead at halftime.

Yale would start the second half on another 7-0 run, and would never look back. They dominated every phase of the game and put the clamps on freshman standout, AJ Brodeur. Yale coach James Jones had this say regarding Brodeur:

More from Philadelphia Sports

“AJ is a young player. He’s gotta learn how to play through the contact. When we watched tape on him, he was able to get around people. We just closed the daylight, and didn’t give him the space to be successful.”

The Quakers played solid defense creating 11 second half turnovers. Offensively, the shots weren’t falling and couldn’t capitalize on the Yale miscues. Coach Donahue added a few thoughts about not taking advantage of the turnovers:

"“We had poor execution on the offensive end. We missed a lot of open shots. I thought our guys were pressing a bit.”"

I think Coach is 100% correct in that assessment. Instead of creating points off turnovers, they played sloppily on the offensive end and forced shots in bad positions. The Quakers would make a late run but it proved to be too late resulting in their 2nd straight Ivy League loss.

Miye Oni lead all scorers tonight with 18 points and added 9 rebounds to earn player of the game honors. Also leading the way for the bulldogs was Alex Copeland with 12 points. The Quakers were carried by freshman AJ Brodeur, scoring 13 points and 8 rebounds. Jackson Donahue also had 13 points on the night.

What can the Quakers take from this loss? Do they need to improve their perimeter shooting? rebounding? We’ll see how far this small lineup can take them because it could be a matchup nightmare down the stretch. If the 4 guard lineup is to be successful, they need to stretch the floor and improve their outside shooting.

Next: St. Joseph’s Will Miss Shavar Newkirk

Penn will have no time to rest as they’re back in action tomorrow evening. They’ll play host to Brown University, finishing up their Ivy league weekend double header. The Quakers might be entering win now mode, but Coach Donahue wanted to hear nothing of it. “I never think of it as a must win. It could derail you if you think that way.” With the addition of a conference tournament this year in the Ivy League, every win is important if you want to make it.

Home/Philadelphia Sports