Penn must turn things around to keep Ivy League tournament hopes alive

Flashes. Penn has shown a lot of them since starting Ivy League play, but flashes alone are not enough. Barring a significant uptick in play, Penn (6-13, 2-4 league) is poised to miss the Ivy men’s basketball tournament for the second straight year.

Through 19 games, the Quakers rank last among the Ivies in total scoring while letting up the most points per game on defense.

Over the weekend, Penn lost both of its matchups at the Palestra. On Friday against Brown, the Quakers rallied from a 17-point first-half deficit but ended up losing, 88-79. The next night against Yale, they trailed again early but could not make it competitive in a 90-61 defeat.

“Should try to be more consistent over the 40 minutes,” coach Steve Donahue said. “We don’t have that yet, and that’s what we’re working at. Forty minutes, trust and belief in each other. ... When things go well, they snowball.”

The team’s leading scorer in both games was transfer forward Ethan Roberts, who logged 29 points against Brown and 19 against Yale. Roberts has been the only consistent scorer for Penn this season.

Here’s what we are seeing from the Quakers:

In both losses, the Quakers were torched by guards as their undersized backcourt failed to keep up with some of the conference’s best scorers.

The story against Brown was point guard Kino Lilly Jr., who ended with a career-high 34 points. The senior guard was able to routinely create space for himself, and the Quakers lacked the length to contest his shots.

On Saturday, Penn’s starting guards AJ Levine and Sam Brown were routinely outmatched by a more physical and athletic Yale backcourt. The Bulldogs’ Bez Mbeng and John Poulakidas combined for 40 points.

“I think we’re the biggest, most physical team in the league,” said Yale coach James Jones. “So we’re going to have some advantages. … It’s tough to guard us, and [Penn’s] defense was basically one-on-one.”

It is not going to get easier for Penn’s guards, either. In their next three games, the Quakers will face Yale and Brown again, as well as Princeton’s Xaiven Lee, who is averaging 16.4 points.

Penn’s roster was built to unload from beyond, but the Quakers struggled from long range to start the season. Through their initial 13 nonconference games, Penn made an average of 7.8 three pointers per game on 29.7% shooting.

In Ivy play, the Quakers have improved to 11 made three-pointers per game on 40% shooting. But even increased accuracy from deep has not been enough.

Against Yale, the Quakers made 10 of 31 shots from beyond the arc but were unable to convert elsewhere. They were outscored 42-22 in the paint by the Bulldogs, who routinely got to the rim.

“Once you go through some stressful situations in the game, it’s how you react to those,” Donahue said. “We’ve gotten better at it. Even [against Brown], we’re down 17, and all of a sudden we’re up four. The kids reacted to it.”

In the Ivy standings, Penn is tied for fifth with Harvard and Brown. They are only one game behind Dartmouth (3-3) for the Ivy tournament’s fourth-place spot.

Ivy Madness is conceivably in reach, but Penn has a difficult schedule ahead. The Quakers will play the league’s top teams, Yale, Princeton, and Cornell, four times in their remaining eight games, five of them on the road.

Penn is looking forward to the return of Michael Zanoni, a junior forward who has been sidelined with an undisclosed injury since Jan. 11. He is expected to return to practice this week. Zanoni started in four straight games before he was hurt, scoring a career-high 27 points against Penn State. He is shooting 35.1% from deep this season.

At the Palestra on Friday, Penn looks to snap an 11-game losing streak to rival Princeton (7 p.m., NBC Sports Philadelphia+).