City of Basketball Love

David Gough (@DG0UGH)
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Friday night began a very important weekend for Penn basketball.

With back-to-back home games against Dartmouth and Harvard, the Quakers came into the final weekend of regular season play with a chance to earn the fourth and final spot in the first-ever Ivy League Tournament.

In the first game of the back-to-back, the Quakers missed an opportunity to really take a hold of that spot, losing 76-74 loss to the Big Green. But coach Steve Donahue is optimistic about Saturday night, when he will see if his guys can clinch it with a win against Harvard.

“I sense that the group is unbelievably appreciative that they’re losing a game at home to Dartmouth, that [they] can come back the next night and have a chance to advance their season,” he said. “I think you’ll see a group with absolute incredible passion to try and get this done.”

The team that Penn (12-14, 5-8) is battling for the fourth spot is Columbia, which was in the process of getting blown out by Brown as the Quakers were losing their match.

The easiest way for Penn to earn that final spot is with a win over Harvard and a Columbia loss to Yale. If both win, the Quakers need Cornell to beat Brown in order to get into the league’s inaugural postseason. Otherwise, the final spot for the new tournament will be rewarded to Columbia.

Penn had its chances against Dartmouth to control its own destiny, with an opportunity to at least send it to overtime.

After a turnover by the Big Green, the Quakers inbounded the ball with 11 seconds left on the side of their basket, down those same two points. The plan was for the ball to end up in the hot hands of freshman Ryan Betley.

Instead, it was Darnell Foreman who wound up with the rock and, with time running out, the junior guard decided it was best to go up on the right side for a layup. The ball rimmed out and bounced off to an empty space as time ran out.

“Betley would’ve been a better shot, but at that point I think [Foreman] did what he could,” Donahue said. “Coming out of the huddle, that’s just not the shot we want.”

The ball being in Foreman’s hands for the last shot still wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened for Penn. The 6-foot-1, 175-pound guard had scored two baskets in a row moments before to tie the game at 72. He finished with 11 points on the night.

Betley tied senior Matt Howard with a game-high 19 points. While Howard led the team with 13 in the first half, the 6-foot-5, 185 pound guard out of Downingtown West took the reigns of Penn’s offense for the final 20 minutes.

He scored 14 points in the second half on 6-of-10 shooting improving from a 2-of-7 mark in the first period.

Betley’s strong play should come as no surprise for the Penn faithful. After coming back from a broken hand that kept him out the first nine games of the year, the freshman has been the third-best scorer for the team, averaging 11.1 points per game.

“He’s nowhere close to where he’d be six months from now, a year from now,” Donahue said. “He’s going to have a really good career, and that will be my expectation.”

While the Quakers as a whole shot 31-of-73 (42.5 percent) from the field, Dartmouth (7-19, 4-9) went a much more efficient 29-of-54 (53.7 percent).

It was perhaps even more impressive from beyond the arc.

The Big Green shot 13-of-27 (48.1 percent) from 3-point range accounting for just over half of their scoring.

It was their fourth-best night of the season from that range and the 13 makes tie the team’s season high in that category.

It’s difficult to defend the 3-point shot when there’s a non-triple threat that is dominant down low. That’s what Dartmouth had in Evan Boudreaux.

The 6-foot-8, 220-pound sophomore came into the game averaging 17.6 points and 9.4 rebounds per game and despite the 3-point success the Big Green had, Boudreaux still managed to do his own damage

The forward notched his 15th double-double of the season for Dartmouth leading the team with 16 points and 12 rebounds.

“I think you have to pick your poison with Dartmouth. The kid, Boudreaux, can go get 27 which he’s done. We didn’t want that to happen. We thought we could get the ball out of his hands and close out on their shooters,” Donahue said.

Penn had to come back a couple of different times on Friday to even have a shot to tie it at the end. Over halfway into the first period, it was down 11.

The Quakers went on a 13-0 run in the next two minutes to take a 28-26 lead. The Big Green still were able to retake the lead and it looked like they would take it into halftime.

With two seconds left, however, Howard finished his impressive first half receiving a full-court inbound pass, turning around, and nailing a jumper near the perimeter to tie it at 35.

Then, in the second half, the Quakers erased a 15-point deficit and even took a three-point lead with over seven minutes to go.

“This group in so many ways, they have surprised me with their endurance, their perseverance,” Donahue said. “There’s been numerous games that [had] what happened tonight, they fought and got back into it.”

Penn just came up a little short in the end, but it can make up for that with a win against Harvard on Saturday night.

Even though a win doesn’t guarantee anything, Donahue is happy that his Quakers have even gotten this far. After an 0-6 start to conference play, they won their next five games.

They still have a shot at the conference tournament after losing their last two.

“If you told me when we were 0-6 that we could play a home game and if we win we had a good chance at advancing, I would’ve married it,” Donahue said.