Clark Slajchert returns for Penn in loss at Princeton, but time is running out for Quakers in Ivy

PRINCETON — About an hour before tip inside Jadwin Gymnasium, the Penn men’s basketball season got a little lift in the form of senior point guard Clark Slajchert, the team’s leading scorer, warming up with his teammates, a protective brace on the injured left ankle that kept him out of game action for six weeks.

What played out over the next three hours Saturday night offered a glimpse of the tantalizing reality of this Penn season — and another reminder of where the Quakers stand in the Ivy League.

Yes, the Quakers looked a lot better with their best player on the court. No surprise there. But Princeton, the team coming off a Sweet 16 appearance with the league’s third-leading scorer, Xaivian Lee, made all of the winning plays when it mattered. The Tigers shot 38 three-pointers and made 16 of them. They turned the ball over just six times. They weren’t perfect defensively, but in the waning minutes they were locked in.

It all resulted in a 77-70 Princeton win, the 10th consecutive Penn loss to its bitter rival. Penn was outscored, 41-30, in the second half.

And so the Quakers are now 1-6 in the Ivy League with half the games on the schedule gone — tied for last place with Dartmouth, the only team Penn has topped in conference play.

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It’s easy to overstate what one player can do for a team, but it’s not overstating to say how much Slajchert makes a difference for Penn. Without him, the Quakers mostly were relying on players lacking college basketball experience to provide meaningful point totals on a nightly basis. His return Saturday night showed what all of this could have looked like if he hadn’t injured his left ankle during the first half of a loss at Houston in December.

What would have happened if Sam Brown and Tyler Perkins — Penn’s star freshmen — were complementary pieces to Slajchert instead of two young guards charged with carrying an offense? What if Nick Spinoso could get loose in the post while defenses focused on Penn’s dangerous perimeter players? That happened Saturday night, when Spinoso scored a team-high 19 points and pulled in 14 rebounds.

You don’t just replace 16.9 points per game from a senior in the Ivy League. The rosters typically aren’t deep enough to sustain the blow.

It was easy to see in 40 minutes Saturday night. Slajchert scored only 10 points on 4-for-11 shooting while grabbing six rebounds and dishing out three assists. It was all the other stuff, though. Plus-minus is not the be-all-end-all stat, but Slajchert was plus-1 in his 36 minutes, meaning Penn was outscored by eight in the four minutes he was on the bench.

There’s your ballgame.

“I just felt the poise,” Penn coach Steve Donahue said. “A lot of it is Clark. It’s having someone that’s been through it, someone that’s the top of the scouting report that they have to worry about. Then everyone else can do their thing now.”

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The Quakers stormed out to a seven-point lead early before Princeton found its shooting touch. Penn was able to respond to every Princeton run, however, and the Quakers led at the break. They then fell behind early in the second half, but Perkins and Slajchert traded baskets with Princeton to keep the game close. The Quakers trailed by one, 62-61, with seven minutes to go — but then came Princeton’s closing run. The Tigers scored the next 10 points. There was too much Lee, too much Caden Pierce, too much Zach Martini, and too much Blake Peters. The foursome combined for 14 of Princeton’s 16 threes.

Penn made just 7 of its 21 attempts from beyond the arc. The 27 points on three-pointers alone was too much of a difference to make up.

So a sold-out Jadwin Gymnasium had plenty to cheer about again. Princeton has won 18 of the last 20 vs. Penn.

“We haven’t gotten over this hump, and I know that,” Donahue said. “It’s cost us two championships. We got to figure it out, not just because I want to beat Princeton, but we want to win a championship.”

Is it too little, too late for that this season?

Mathematically, no, and Slajchert’s return gives Donahue some hope that making up the two-game deficit and getting into the fourth spot to secure a spot in Ivy Madness is still on the table.

“We’re a good basketball team that lost its best player for almost six weeks and now we’re feeling like we have something to grow on,” he said.

“These guys got through this. You might say, ‘Oh, you won one.’ But, like, we’re a good basketball team. Now, can we grow on this and not be satisfied and figure out that if we played well we’re capable of beating anyone in the league?”

That’s the question facing Donahue and his team, and time isn’t on their side.