City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Penn’s student section was the barometer.

At the outset of the Quakers’ Big 5 game against No. 21 Villanova on Monday night, the contingent of Ivy League students gathered behind the eastern basket of the Palestra were almost entirely seated, expecting to see the Wildcats continue their recent run of dominance against their city foe.

By the second half, they were on their feet and loud as freshman Tyler Perkins hit one big shot after another, leading Penn to its biggest win of the year, 76-72.

Afterwards, that sizeable student section flooded the court, celebrating the program’s first win over a ranked team in almost five years.

“When you get that kind of game, there’s really nothing like college basketball,” Penn coach Steve Donahue said. “This is what they dreamed of, and to walk out here and perform, the campus basically running on the court, it’s why you play college basketball. There’s not a better venue in the country.”

Perkins, Penn’s highly-touted freshman who came in second on the team in scoring (15.7 ppg) through three games, had to carry much of the load early on for the Quakers. The 6-foot-4 guard from the Landon School (Va.) had nine of his team’s first 20 points and didn’t slow down, finishing with 22 points, including a crucial pair of foul shots with 17.4 seconds left. 

He also added six rebounds and drew nine fouls, helping him go 9-of-12 from the foul line. 

Villanova got a pair of 3-pointers in the game’s final 11 seconds to get within two points, but a pair of Clark Slajchert shots with 3.8 seconds left sealed the win.

“It felt like about damn time I made some free throws," he joked afterwards.

“It was amazing, I’ve been thinking about that moment for a while,” added the 6-foot-tall senior guard, who contributed 11 points and four assists to the win. “We play ‘Nova every year, they have a lot of notoriety, so kind of a dream to win it here at the Palestra, when our fans show up give everyone in the gym this moment. I was really proud of our guys. It felt great.”

Perkins hit the biggest shot of the night, a corner 3-pointer from right in front of the Penn bench, putting his team up 11 points with 4:02 left, capping off a critical 8-0 run for the Quakers (3-1, 1-1 Big 5). That shot got the loudest roar of the night from the Penn section, which never sat back down once it was on its feet.

“I forgot when it was but it got really loud, all the students stood up,” Perkins said. “It just got really loud, that’s the only thing I remember. It was awesome.”

Penn shot 51.1% (24-of-47) to pull off the upset, including 7-of-17 (41.2%) from downtown. Despite a significant size disadvantage across the board, Penn out-rebounded Villanova 39-34, and limited its visitors in transition, holding the Wildcats to only 10 fast break points.

“Hat’s off to Penn, thought they did a great job,” Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said. “Great game plan, forced us into some tough shots. [We] never got it going offensively, credit to them on that and we couldn’t get stops when we needed them.”

In a game where the hosts led almost the entire way through, every time Villanova (2-1, 0-1 Big 5) looked like it was finally ready to assert itself, Penn had an answer. 

When the Wildcats took a lead late in the first half after trailing almost the entire way, the Quakers didn’t flinch, getting a Slajchert bucket to put them back on top going into the break. When Eric Dixon knocked down a 3-pointer to bring ‘Nova back within a point, Cam Thrower responded with one from NBA range to extinguish the momentum. 

Penn took its largest lead of the game at 60-51 with 7:36 left, but Villanova scored six straight to get back within three. The Quakers had a response yet again, Ed Holland III hitting a shot in the lane and George Smith splitting a pair from the line before Slajchert threw in a bucket to get the lead back to eight with under five to play before Perkins’ big triple.

Villanova had one final push, forcing a few turnovers in the game’s last minutes to close within four, but couldn’t hit the shots it needed down the stretch to put enough pressure on Penn, which beat a ranked team for the first time since Dec. 11, 2018 — a 78-75 win over No. 23 Villanova. 

Holland, a 6-5 wing from Friends’ Central, added 12 points, his most against a D-I opponent, going 4-of-6 overall and 2-of-3 from downtown. Thrower, a 6-3 sophomore from California, finished with 11 points (3-5 FG, 2-3 3PT) for his first career double-digit outing against a Division I opponent.

Getting production from those two is a major positive sign for a Penn squad picked fifth in the Ivy League this preseason.

"A guy like Eddie Holland, this is what it was like in college basketball, a guy plays for two years behind other guys, and now he gets the opportunity and he excels. He worked, he learned. Same for Cam Thrower," Donahue said. "I just think they're probably sick of the video we show of Villanova when we beat them and Jake Silpe's diving for balls. Now we'e got (them) doing that."

Neither team shot it well in the early going. Villanova made two of its first 10 triples, shooting below 35% much of the way through. The Wildcats finished shooting 22-of-63 (34.9%) overall and 9-of-33 (27.3%) from downtown.

“I don’t think you can ever 100% rely on making and missing shots," Neptune said. "If that’s all you’re relying on, you’re not going to be a good team. 

Justin Moore led Villanova with 19 points, though the senior guard was 5-of-16 from the floor (2-9 3PT). Jordan Longino tied a career high with 14, and Eric Dixon added 12 and nine rebounds.

Penn’s win sets up a potential three-way tie in its Big 5 pod. Saint Joseph’s, which beat Penn on Friday to go to 1-0 in pod play, has to beat Villanova on Nov. 29 to win the three-team pod with a 2-0 record; a Villanova win means all three teams finish 1-1, in which case a tiebreaker would come into play.

Penn's next game comes Saturday at Maryland Eastern-Shore (1-1). Villanova hosts Maryland (1-2) on Friday night.