City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Jay Jones committed to Penn men’s basketball near the end of his junior year of high school, in March 2024. Dalton Scantlebury joined the Quakers’ incoming 2025 class that December, early in his senior year. 

The both planned on playing in University City for head coach Steve Donahue, who had been the Quakers’ boss since 2014. Instead, they find themselves as collegiate rookies this year under the guidance of Fran McCaffery, the Penn alum and longtime Division I coach who took over at his alma mater at the beginning of the offseason. 

And both certainly seem to have taken it in stride. 

“There’s never been a shadow of a doubt in my mind that this is exactly where I wanted to be right now,” Scantlebury told CoBL. “I’m just really happy to be here and I’ve known this is where I want to be for a long time.”

“Yeah, I feel like I’ve been around the game my whole life but I’ve never really had a legendary coach like Coach Fran,” said Jones, whose father Joe Jones is the 23rd-year head coach at Boston University. “It’s kind of crazy to learn from him and be around him and the way he sees the game and the way he’s showing us how to play.

“It’s been a lot of fun.”

Based on the rotation McCaffery utilized on Friday night in Penn’s season-opening, 119-72 win over D-III Rowan, both Scantlebury and Jones look like they’re firmly in the mix to begin their Penn careers. 

A 6-foot-9, 220-pound forward/center, Scantlebury was the first big off the bench for the Quakers, entering the game less than seven minutes in in relief of junior center Augustus Gerhart. He quickly made his presence felt with a post-up bucket as he used his size advantage well in his Penn debut, racking up a 17-point, 10-rebound double-double in just under 17 minutes on the court while leading the Quakers in both blocks (four) and steals (three).

He’s the first Penn freshman to have a double-double in his debut since program great A.J. Brodeur put 23 and 11 on Robert Morris on Nov. 11, 2016. 

Not bad for a kid from Chicago who said he fell out of love with basketball during the COVID pandemic and didn’t regain his passion until his junior year at Lane Tech (Ill.). When asked about that in the context of what happened Friday night, even he seemed a little awestruck at just how his circumstances had changed.

“My parents met at Michigan and my brother went to Michigan so they’re obviously huge Big Ten people,” Scantlebury said, explaining how his family was familiar with McCaffery, who had spent the previous 15 seasons at Iowa, leading the Hawkeyes to seven NCAA Tournament appearances. “[When he got the job] my brother was like ‘this is awesome, this is the best possible thing that could have happened.”’

Scantlebury spent the summer preparing for his freshman year by working out with former Iowa big man Cordell Pemsel, who told him what he was in for and helped him get in shape.

“I lost like 25 pounds because I knew we were going to run a very fast-paced offense and I needed to be ready for that,” Scantlebury said. “(Pemsel) said I’m going to love it, he had no doubt in his mind about that, and he was totally right.

“I didn’t realize how much I loved playing in transition because I’ve always been not in good enough shape to play in transition,” he added, “but it’s awesome, and to play the game the way that Fran wants us to play it, and to be able to get it and run is so much fun and I really enjoy that pace of play.”

Scantlebury’s only rough moment came late in the first half, when he missed an alley-oop layup and a follow-up right at the rim. But he immediately made up for it with a leaping block at the other end to close out the half. 

“For me, it starts and ends with the defensive rebounding, and tonight the offense found itself too,” he said. “I’m really trying to impact defense and rebounding.”

Jones made his first appearance right around the midpoint of the first half, with Penn already well in control against its small-college visitor. He finished with eight points and three assists in 20 minutes in his first collegiate action. 

A 6-4 guard who graduated from the Rivers School (Mass.) before a prep year at Cushing Academy (Mass.), he’s not just the son of a longtime Division I coach but the nephew of another in Yale head coach James Jones, whom he’ll play against twice this year. 

While he played both guard positions in high school, functioning especially well as a catch-and-shoot threat, the Penn staff has him working on the ball behind sophomore AJ Levine, a role that’s especially valuable at the moment with senior guard Dylan Williams sidelined due to injury. 

Jones said he’s been leaning on a couple of the Quakers’ assistants, former Council Rock North/Penn State standout Ben Luber and former Plymouth Whitemarsh/Siena product Ronald Moore, for advice in his first few months of college.

“I’ve been a combo guard most of my life but playing more the point here, just adjusting to that, it’s been a real grind,” he said. “Been talking to coach Luber about that, coach Ron, both of them were great point guards; talking to them [about] how to play the point, being on the ball more, that’s been a real key in terms of me getting on the court.” 

Scantlebury and Jones weren’t the only Quakers making their debuts in Red & Blue on Friday. Former five-star forward T.J. Power, who missed most of the preseason due to injury, showed some rust as he finished 2-9 from the floor for six points in 22 minutes. Sophomore wing Lucas-Allan Lueth, a 6-7 junior college transfer, flashed his athleticism in a five-point, five-rebound, two-steal outing over 17 minutes off the bench. 

Senior wing Ethan Roberts scored an easy 28 points on 8-of-11 shooting, including 4-of-5 from 3-point range; Gerhart added 12 points and nine rebounds. The Quakers dominated their D-III opponent on the glass, 59-29, and had a 54-26 advantage in the paint. 

While there wasn’t too much to be read from the dominant win, which set the program record for points in a game, the Penn offense did look crisp from the get-go, the Quakers not looking like a program playing with half a new roster and a new coaching staff. 

“I was very pleased with it,” McCaffery said. “And we work on it, a lot, and that’s how we play. We flow right into our motion offense from transition, and it’s screen, move, cut with a purpose.”

Penn’s season really gets underway on Sunday when the Quakers travel down to the nation’s capital to play American, just two days before a trip to Rhode Island to play Providence. They then get six days to prepare for their next home game, the Big 5 opener against St. Joe’s on Monday, Nov. 17. 

The bigger stakes at play are to see if McCaffery can get Penn back to a place of prominence in the Ivy league, eight years after its last NCAA Tournament appearance. He’s taken each of his four previous stops there; doing it at his alma mater in what could very well be his final head coaching position would make it five-for-five. 

The whole roster, newcomers and not, know what’s at stake.

“Having a coach who was there when it was at that height of success, it’s definitely something we’re cognizant of,” Scantlebury said. “Obviously we met at the start of the season ,we knew what we wanted to do, we knew we didn’t want a spring break, we knew we wanted to go dancing. 

“Top of mind is to win the Ivy but in terms of what I’m thinking, it’s just, we’ve got to beat American, they’re the next ones up.”