Penn and Cornell tip off at the Palestra on Saturday. (Photo: Aaron Bracy)
By AARON BRACY
January 18, 2025
PHILADELPHIA – On Saturday at the Palestra, there were glimpses of what coach Steve Donahue thought Penn could be—and still might become.
The offensive dominance of Ethan Roberts. A three-pointer on one possession, a drive and foul on another, a pull-up jumper on the next.
The breathtaking passing of Nick Spinoso. The bounce pass from the elbow, the no-look dish down low, the simple, but perfect outlet pass to a shooter from the post.
The knockdown shooting of Sam Brown. The lefty swish from the top of the key, then another lefty swish from the top of the key.
The athleticism of freshman point guard A.J. Levine. The surprising hops on the fastbreak, the toughness on defense, rising off the floor after taking an elbow to the kisser.
Glimpses. Just enough to understand why Donahue thought Penn could contend in the Ivy League this season in spite of pollsters thinking otherwise, voting the Quakers seventh of eight in the league’s preseason poll.
At present, the pollsters look pretty smart, as you’d expect from this group.
Glimpses are enough, maybe, to keep alive a coach’s hope. But glimpses haven’t been enough for victories, and Penn dropped yet another contest on Saturday, falling 86-76 to the Big Red to drop to 4-11 overall and 0-2 in the Ivy League. (Click HERE for the box score.)
There are 12 league games left. Still time to get into the top four in the Ivy to qualify for Ivy Madness, the league’s four-team postseason tournament with the league’s coveted NCAA bid at stake. There was a time, not too long ago, when Penn owned this league, making 10 NCAA tournaments in 15 years between 1993 and 2007. Early in that stretch, the Quakers won an unfathomable 48 consecutive league games under Fran Dunphy. But the league has caught up to Penn, the Quakers having gone to the Big Dance just once since 2007.
Donahue and the Quakers talked in the preseason of that proud tradition, of its importance, of getting it back. There have been glimpses. Just glimpses.
“I think it’s apparent that we’re getting better,” Donahue said. “We’ve got to learn how to win, that’s what I told the group. It’s not effort, they’re competing. We’re going to keep figuring this out. Good thing about the league is it has a tournament. You gotta keep fighting. And we’ve got a young group that has a big chance for growth, and it’s my responsibility to get them there.”
Donahue thought the Quakers would be closer to “there” by now. But Penn’s relative inexperience, Donahue said, has him still searching for “there.”
“I think the thing I probably undervalued, even though I knew these kids were good players, I probably underestimated how important experience is, particularly at this level,” he said. “You win with older guys. I probably underestimated that a little bit. I see them every day in practice. I know it’s there. It’s just the other teams in this league are older too, and we’ve got to figure out how to bridge that gap until we get older.”
The Quakers showed some promise against Cornell, playing well for the opening 13 minutes or so of the first half, with Roberts doing pretty much what he wanted. It was a stretch of basketball that probably left some observers–this one, for sure–wondering how Penn hasn’t won more. But then their weaknesses began to show—whether inexperience, as Donahue believes, talent, or something else entirely—in the final 6 1/2 minutes of the opening half.
Cornell took their up-tempo style to the Quakers, and there was absolutely nothing Penn could do. The Big Red scored 24 points in the final 6:31 of the first half, a breathtaking offensive pace of 147 points over 40 minutes. Penn had few answers. Not much changed after the break, when the Big Red ran off 17 of the first 25 points of the second half to sink the Quakers into a 20-point hole from which it was going to be next-to-impossible to recover.
“During that stretch, they got us on our heels and were very aggressive,” Donahue said.
And then the glimpses returned. The Quakers locked down on defense as well, probably, as they have all season. But offense continued to be a struggle. Penn entered as one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the country, so it was no surprise that shots weren’t dropping from long range.
But it was more than that.
There were two misses on the front end of one-and-ones from the free-throw line on consecutive possessions during crunch time; there was Levine missing the wide-open dunk after a beautiful show of athleticism and leaping ability though a simple layup would’ve been preferred by the head coach and the Penn scoreboard operator; there were bunnies that Spinoso makes in his sleep that rattled, improbably, in and out.
There was good, too. The fight that is a must with the words “Fight On Penn” on your home court and splashed on your social media pages. Penn did that. The Quakers kept coming.
A great sign for the Quakers was Brown’s three-pointer with just over two minutes left, then another with 1:27 remaining that briefly cut the margin under double-digits for the first time in the half. That looked more like the Brown you expected, the player you thought you’d see this season, the one who scorched Ancient Eight nets as a freshman last season when he shot 43.3 percent from the arc and not the one who’s still searching for his form, as those two triples put him at 24.3 percent from long range this season.
Brown is at the top of opponents’ scouting reports this season, and getting open for clean looks is messier, harder. He’s still adjusting, and those last two treys could be a huge confidence booster and positive step.
“They’re going to get in you, they’re going to make it hard for you,” Donahue said of defenders’ focus on Brown this season. “I thought he’s played two pretty good games. I think there’s a whole, other level now that he knows and understands what he’s against.”
For Brown, like the Quakers, there are glimpses.
Right now, however, glimpses are just not enough.
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Aaron Bracy has been covering Philadelphia sports since 1996. Follow Bracy on X: @Aaron_Bracy and like his Facebook and Instagram pages. His book on the 2003-04 Saint Joseph’s men’s basketball team is expected to be published on March 1, 2025. Read a summary and preorder it by clicking HERE. Contact him at aaron@big5hoops.com.