City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It was a place T.J. Power hadn’t been in years. 

At the line, single-digits on the clock, a game on the line, a crowd on its feet. And with 2,387 folks at the Palestra looking on, Power went swish, swish. 

Power's two free throws with 6.8 seconds on the clock — and a couple technical free-throws with 1.7 seconds remaining — capped off his best game since his high school days three years back, giving him a career-high 23 points and Penn an 83-74 Big 5 win over Saint Joseph’s on Monday night at the Palestra. 

“It hasn’t even set in yet, fully,” he said afterwards. “I’ve been waiting for a game like this for a long time.”

Ethan Roberts led the way with 31 points for the Quakers (2-2, 1-0 Big 5) for his second-highest scoring output in a Penn uniform as the program picked up its biggest win yet of the young season, energizing a fan base that’s needed a shot in the arm the last few years. But there’s no doubt the bigger story of the night from an offensive perspective was Power's continued rounding into form after missing most of the 2025 preseason due to injury.

The 6-foot-9 wing forward, a Shrewsbury (Mass.) native, arrived at Penn in the offseason to great fanfare. A former four-star recruit who began his college career at Duke and then transferred to Virginia, Power seemed like a big-time grab for first-year head coach Fran McCaffery, who came in this offseason to turn his alma mater back into a contender after taking four previous programs to the NCAA Tournament.

But Power came to University City with some question marks after having failed to make a significant on-court impact his first two seasons of college despite much fanfare. He saw the court in 26 games as a freshman with the Blue Devils and in 24 games with Virginia but averaged 1.7 ppg and 0.9 rpg over those two years. 

For a former Massachusetts Gatorade State Player of the Year at Worcester Academy and the top-ranked recruit in his state, that was a journey he wasn’t prepared for. 

“I could go on for a long time about that and those two years,” he said. “When you have those expectations coming into college, it’s a humbling experience. You learn to love basketball for what it is, and college basketball has a lot of pros, but it also has a lot of cons and I’ve experienced that a lot. 

“I just stuck with the love of basketball, the game itself, and I just kept working to get better and better, and it’s put me in a position to play for McCafferty and be a leader and understand what guys are going through at the end of our bench and be vocal to them and that’s a blessing in disguise I didn’t realize those first two years.”

Power got healthy in time to play in Penn’s season opener on Nov. 7, but he was clearly rusty against D-III Rowan, missing a number of layups as he finished with six points on 2-of-9 shooting. He then scored 10 points (with seven rebounds) as Penn lost to American before contributing 15 points in a loss to Providence last Tuesday. 

He looked like he still might be shaking off that rust as he missed a couple early layups, but he knocked down a 3-pointer from the right wing near the midway point of the first half, and suddenly the floor opened up. Another triple, with a hand in his face, followed shortly thereafter; a third triple, less than three minutes later, and the Penn crowd caught on that Power was feeling it. 

Power had 18 points by halftime, adding a fourth triple with 3:17 left in the first half. All of his second-half points came at the foul line as he only took four shots in the second half, and he added 15 rebounds for a monster double-double, the first of his college career.

“It was special,” he said. “The Palestra’s a really special place and I didn’t have the performance I wanted in my first home game. I had my mind set on settling in tonight, and I feed on the energy from the crowd; when I get lost in competing, the other parts of my game tend to fall into place.”

While Power got rolling early, it was Roberts who carried them late. The 6-6 wing and the Quakers’ leading scorer (23.3 ppg) scored 12 straight for his team between the 5:58 mark and :48 seconds remaining, including a couple key takes to the hoop after St. Joe’s got a bucket on the other end. That was the difference in a game that felt like the Quakers were in control most of the way despite the Hawks’ forcing 15 ties and 12 lead changes. 

Penn took the lead for the last time on the first two points of Roberts’ run as he went on a 6-0 spurt by himself to put Penn up five with 4:47 to play. And the Quakers (2-2, 1-0 Big 5) clamped down the defensive end, forcing the Hawks (2-2, 1-1 Big 5) into one bad shot after another as the two-time defending Big 5 champs lost a Big 5 game for the first time in three years of the series’ new format.

The win puts Penn in position to play for a Big 5 championship if it can beat Drexel on Friday night at the DAC; otherwise, with all three teams 1-1, it would go to the NET rating. Having Power and Roberts both playing at their best would be a major step.

“It takes a lot of pressure off everybody else,” McCaffery said. “When that happens, there’s more space for everybody else, that’s how we got into the double bonus going down the stretch.”

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St. Joe’s shooting woes

Long-range shooting is starting to become a real concern for the Hawks. 

The St. Joe’s men came into play Monday night 351st in Division I hoops in 3-point shooting (23.94%), with only 10 teams below them. They didn’t fare much better against Penn, going 10-for-35 (28.6%) from deep to raise their 3-point shooting percentage to 25.5%. A few ugly misses in the game’s closing sequence didn’t help, but there were a lot of off-the-mark catch-and-shoot triples as well. 

“I think a lot of the guys do their work in practice, a lot of guys make their shots in practice, it’s all about confidence and just watching the ball go in, man,” senior guard Derek Simpson said. “A lot of dudes put the work in, a lot of them deserve the shots they take, they just didn’t go down tonight. We just got the right looks, we got a lot of good looks, they just didn’t fall.”

Last year, St. Joe’s shot 33.5% from 3-point range but lost two of their three best shooters, Rasheer Fleming (39%) and Xzayvier Brown (35.0%), in the offseason. 

Of the Hawks’ primary scorers, Deuce Jones II (6-of-18, 33.3%) and Simpson (5-16, 31.3%) are the only two above 30% on the young season. Anthony Finkley (4-19, 21.1%), who shot 39.6% from deep last year, as well Jaiden Glover-Toscano (5-21, 23.8%) and the rest should be better shooters in theory, but thus far they’re just not connecting on their clean looks. 

“They’re open, they’re in rhythm,” St. Joe’s coach Steve Donahue said. “I think Fink and Dasear and Glove and Deuce are all good 3-point shooters if they get the right shots, and I agree with Derek, it’s hard to argue with the shots.”

Jones II led St. Joe’s with 24 points, going an efficient 8-of-14 overall and 3-of-8 from deep. Simpson (6-12 FG, 3-7 3PT) added 26 and Finkley (4-10 FG, 2-5 3PT) added 10. The rest of the Hawks were 2-of-15 from deep for a total of 12 points. 

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Dylan Williams returns for Penn

One more positive sign for the Quakers was the season debut of senior guard Dylan Williams, who’d been out earlier this season with an arm injury. 

Last year, his first season as a Quaker after two seasons of JUCO ball, Williams made 25 appearances (11 starts), averaging 4.4 ppg, 1.2 rpg and 1.2 apg. He brings good experience behind sophomore point guard A.J. Levine, giving them a pesky defender and ball-handler who can get to the hoop.

Williams didn’t take long to get on the board, coming up with a reverse layup and-one just a minute after he entered the game. He also got to the hoop just ahead of the buzzer in first half, sending the teams tied into the locker rooms; Williams finished with four points and one assist in nearly nine minutes on the floor.

“It was great to have Dylan back after missing the last three games,” McCaffery said. “[He] gave us a big boost in the first half, especially the last play of the first half gave us plenty of momentum going into the halftime.”

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Donahue’s return to Palestra

It had to have been something of a strange night for Donahue, who had spent the last 10 years — spanning nine seasons and a COVID year — on the Penn sidelines as the Quakers’ head coach before his dismissal in March at the end of an eight-win season. 

But despite the fact that he was coming out of a locker room opposite from the one he was used to over the span of his head coaching run an a 10-year tenure as an assistant in the 90s, and the fact that he was coaching against a roster he’d mostly recruited, Donahue downplayed that aspect of the evening. 

“I tried to just work on the emotional side of this and take it out,” he said. “I know all the guys, I’m coaching this group, I took the emotion out of it, I thought I was able to do that. 

“It’s way more [about] what you’re going through on this journey with this group. I have such a relationship with those guys, but I’m in this, this engulfs your whole life and I try to do everything I can for this group to win. It wasn’t that difficult to stay focused on that and I’ll continue to support these guys and motivate them and inspire them and get them better.”

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Up Next

Penn (2-2, 1-0 Big 5) will play at Drexel on Friday (7 PM)

St. Joe’s (2-2, 1-1 Big 5) will play at UNLV on Thursday (10 PM)

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