Penn dominated Yale on Saturday at the Palestra, keeping its slim hope for an Ivy League tournament bid alive.
Mataya Gayle (22 points, four assists) and Brooke Suttle (16 points) combined for 38 points in the 68-52 win, which put the Quakers three games back of Harvard and Brown for fourth place in the Ancient Eight with four games left in the season.
Penn women’s basketball competed in the four-team Ivy Madness tournament in six of the possible seven times since its inception in 2017. The Quakers failed to qualify in 2022.
“They know we need to win,” Penn coach Mike McLaughlin said. “Since they’re smarter than me, they can figure out statistical analysis. I’m just here to tell you one at a time.”
A mark above
Gayle was honored pregame at halfcourt for reaching 1,000 career points against Cornell last weekend. The point guard is the 27th player in program history to reach the historic mark, but she’s not resting on her laurels.
“I was excited about it,” Gayle said. “I think it was more so bittersweet. It’s the last time I’ll do this, so I was happy to get it. I’m proud of myself and the work I put in, but just want to keep winning.”
Once the ball was tipped, Gayle continued her scoring ways — she tacked on 10 more points before the end of the first quarter. The Quakers (15-9, 5-6 Ivy League) held the lead for all but 21 seconds on Saturday, repeatedly taking advantage of Yale’s Ivy League-worst defense by scoring at the rim.
Penn took care of the ball, too, and had just seven turnovers.
“Only turning the ball over seven times gives us a chance to beat anyone,” McLaughlin said.
Senior guard Simone Sawyer (12 points, eight rebounds) and Suttle combined to go 10-of-17 from the field, stepping up as reigning Ivy League Rookie of the Year Katie Collins (eight points) who shot 2-of-11 from the field and struggled to score against Yale’s size.
“I felt great,” Suttle, a sophomore guard, said. “Honestly, my teammates were doing a great job of finding me on cuts and off ball screens and actions like that. It’s just really good to be able to go out there knowing that they were confident in me.”
Sophomore guard Ciniya Moore led Yale (6-18, 2-9) with 19 points.
After winning the first iteration of Ivy Madness in 2017, Penn has been a perennial bridesmaid, losing in the championship game the next two seasons and coming in as the fourth seed in each of the last three.
Now, McLaughlin is looking for help from some unlikely allies down the stretch with the hope that his team, once again, sneaks its way into contention.
“I’ll buy them something to eat when I see them next,” McLaughlin said in reference to if Princeton beats Brown. “That’s what Philly people do right? They help out. We took care of our business. Whatever happens, happens, but I’m not opposed to buying if they help us out.”
The men’s team, which traveled to New Haven, Conn., to take on the league-leading Bulldogs, lost, 74-70. The Quakers (13-11, 6-5) remain in third with a one-game lead over fourth-place Cornell.
Penn’s three-headed offensive attack, led by TJ Power (18 points, eight rebounds), Ethan Roberts (12 points), and Michael Zanoni (20 points), showed out — but the team failed to stop Yale’s paint presence, led by forward Isaac Celiscar (16 points) and center Samson Aletan (13 points).
The Bulldogs (21-4, 9-2) scored 14 more points in the paint, 36-22, and seven more second-chance points (14-7).
Penn guard Michael Zanoni had 20 points in a road loss to Yale.
Up next
Penn’s women embark on their final regular-season road trip, starting with Harvard on Friday (7 p.m., ESPN+). The men host Dartmouth that night at the Palestra (7 p.m., ESPN+).
Fran McCaffery’s Penn team has not lost this month.
Behind a second-half surge, the Quakers extended their winning streak to four with an 82-76 victory over Cornell at the Palestra on Saturday evening.
The Quakers win is a boon to the team’s hopes of qualifying for the four-team Ivy League tournament. Penn (13-10, 6-4 Ivy) now holds sole possession of third place and the head-to-head tiebreaker over Cornell (12-11, 5-5).
TJ Power and Jay Jones led the Quakers with 17 points each. Five Quakers scored in double figures.
Jones and Lucas Lueth both set new career highs in scoring to help seal the win. Jones, a freshman guard, reached double-figure scoring for the first time in his Penn career. He was instrumental in the game’s closing minutes as Cornell extended the game with fouls. Jones shot 9-of-11 from the line, with seven of those makes coming in the final two minutes.
“The coaching staff has done a great job, and they give me a bunch of confidence,” Jones said. “[If] you look, you’ll see me look at the coaching staff after I shoot my first [free throw] all the time. I’ve got a lot of trust in them.”
Lueth went on a 6-0 run by himself in the second half to build the Quakers’ lead from three points to nine with 9 minutes, 35 seconds remaining.
The sophomore forward, who transferred to Penn from Kirkwood Community College in Iowa, finished with 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
“They’re new to our program,” McCaffery said. “They’re new to our system. But they’re both really smart. They both prioritize winning. They do the things that are necessary for the team to win.”
Penn’s bench outscored Cornell’s reserves, 30-16. Jones and Lueth combined for 19 points in the second half as the Quakers pulled away.
“They earned the opportunity to play at crunch time tonight in a very meaningful game,” McCaffery said. ”So, as a coach, you’re proud of that character.”
Defense clamps down
Penn had a poor shooting night, hitting 42.6% of its shots from the field and shooting 3-of-20 from three-point range. But the Quakers were able to lean on their defense to contain Cornell. Penn held Cornell to its third-lowest point total of the season. The Big Red shot 47.6% from the field against Penn’s defense and were 6-of-23 from distance.
Penn guard AJ Levine drives to the basket against Cornell guard Jake Fiegen (left) and guard Cooper Noard during the second half on Saturday.
Cornell also struggled from the free throw line, making 10-of-21 shots. Penn converted 16 Cornell turnovers into 23 points while allowing nine giveaways of its own.
“All throughout practice we were talking about heating them up,” Lueth said. “So that’s what we did.”
Method to the Ivy madness
After a 76-67 win over Columbia at the Palestra on Friday, the Quakers picked up two Ivy victories in as many days. Penn gained some distance on the rest of the pack in its bid for a league tournament berth. Dartmouth and Princeton, who are tied for fifth place in the Ivy standings, both lost on Saturday. Their losses give Penn a two-game cushion over the Ivy tournament cut line.
The Quakers are one game behind Harvard for second and two games behind first-place Yale. Penn will travel to face the Bulldogs for its next game on Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN+).
“We stay pretty consistent in our approach,” McCaffery said. “We don’t look at, ‘OK, we have to win two this weekend.’ We focus on the next game. We did some things well when we played Yale, some things we didn’t do well. So you work on that, you try to get better, and you prepare to win that game.”
After Yale, Penn’s remaining schedule will include games against Dartmouth and Harvard at the Palestra and a season finale contest at Brown. The Ivy League tournament will begin March 14 at Cornell.
Every once in a while, Kevin Willard loves when the shot clock expires before a Villanova shot attempt.
There really is a time and place for everything.
“Everyone will say, ‘You’re nuts,’” Willard said Tuesday night after Villanova rallied late to beat Marquette. “It takes 30 seconds; it sets up our defense. The worst thing you can do is come down and jack up a shot with 2 seconds on the shot clock, long rebound, your defense isn’t set. I’d rather have a shot-clock violation, set my defense up, have them work for 25 seconds, and then take 30 seconds and the game’s over.”
Villanova has taken its share of violations in the second half of victories this season. There were two during a 12-point win over Seton Hall on Feb. 4 while the Wildcats held leads of 14 and 12 inside of five minutes. They took one vs. Providence up by 19 points with four minutes left. They took one vs. Butler while ahead by 12 with 2½ minutes to go. And they had three during their Big East opener on Dec. 23, when they built a big lead over Seton Hall on the road and won by eight.
To be clear, there were no such violations during Tuesday’s win. So how did we get to this topic? Willard was asked after the game about tempo and whether he thought the team could play a little faster. The Wildcats are ranked 337th by KenPom’s adjusted tempo metric and 296th in average possessions per game (68.4).
Willard, who has the Wildcats at 19-5 overall and 10-3 in the Big East entering Saturday’s game at Creighton, is a passionate talker of tempo. He went on a mini rant about the subject in April at his introductory news conference at Villanova. He focuses on defensive tempo, he explained then, the amount of time it takes for an opponent to get off a shot. On the offensive side, the difference between shot speed from top to bottom is only a matter of a few seconds, he said.
“You know the difference between the 20th fastest team and us?” Willard asked Tuesday. “1.6 seconds.”
By average number of possessions, the difference between Villanova at 297th and the 100th-ranked team (Miami) is just four possessions.
Freshman point guard Acaden Lewis is charged with setting Villanova’s tempo on offense.
“I have a young team, and when we get up I’m going to control the ball and take the air out of the ball,” Willard said. “That’s one of the reasons why our tempo is so low is if you watch any time we’ve gotten up more than 12, I’ve taken the air out of the ball and we have run the clock down. One of the easiest ways to lose leads is to take quick shots.
“I think we play pretty fast. It’s not like he walks the ball up,” Willard said, pointing to freshman point guard Acaden Lewis. “It’s not like we’re ever walking the ball up. It’s 1.6 seconds. Everyone gets stuck on that tempo s—.”
Less than a month of regular-season basketball remains, so it feels like a good time to round up who could win Big 5 awards.
Let’s start with the coaches. The easy answer here is Villanova sweeping. Willard is on his way to stopping the three-year NCAA drought on the men’s side. Denise Dillon has her fifth 20-win season in six years as Wildcats coach. But those are the obvious answers partially because they coach teams that entered the season with at-large NCAA Tournament chances.
But how about Mountain MacGillivray, the La Salle women’s coach? The Explorers went 4-15 in the Atlantic 10 last season. They’ve nearly doubled that total so far in 2025-26 and still have five games left. And what about Adam Fisher? The Temple men’s coach had to rebuild another roster in the offseason and has the Owls at 7-4 in the American Conference and in the mix. Or Steve Donahue, who stepped into a weird situation at St. Joseph’s, got off to a slow start, and has the Hawks in fourth place in the A-10?
La Salle’s Ashleigh Connor is guarded by St. Joseph’s Rhian Stokes on Jan. 28.
As for player of the year on the men’s side, Villanova’s Tyler Perkins and Lewis have good arguments, as do Penn’s Ethan Roberts, Derek Simpson of St. Joe’s, and Temple’s Derrian Ford. On the women’s side, it might be Villanova sophomore Jasmine Bascoe’s award to lose. But La Salle’s Ashleigh Connor is having a great season, as is Drexel’s Amaris Baker and Gabby Casey of St. Joe’s.
The Villanova women won by 40 Wednesday night at Xavier and Bascoe reached the 1,000-point plateau in less than two full seasons. The Wildcats are rolling. They’re 13-3 in the Big East and firmly in second place, two games clear of Seton Hall in the loss column.
But they’re also firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble. ESPN’s latest bracketology had the Wildcats as a No. 10 seed and in the “last four byes” group. The projected field capped just six spots behind them.
Villanova coach Denise Dillon with her star guard, Jasmine Bascoe.
Like the men, the women are in Omaha, Neb., this weekend. They play a Creighton team on Sunday that they already beat by 10 at home. It’s not a great time to have a slip-up, because after that it’s the annual home game vs. No. 1 UConn, which is undefeated and already beat Villanova by 49. Just two games are on the schedule after that: a home game vs. fourth-place Marquette and a road showdown at Seton Hall. Then comes the conference tournament.
Since we last took stock of the Big 5 men’s teams, a few more got on the positive side of .500 in league play, which brings a better possibility of running the table come conference tournament time.
What’s Torvik’s math — which is based on thousands of simulations — for the rest of the pack?
Penn: 10.1%
Drexel: 3%
Temple: 2.9%
St. Joe’s: 2.6%
La Salle: 0.1%
The Big 5’s streak of no men’s teams looks like it’s ending. Just don’t count on Villanova having any company at the dance.
For the first time since Feb. 6, 2018, Penn has defeated Princeton in a men’s basketball game.
The Quakers entered the matchup sitting sixth in the Ivy League, one game behind Princeton, which beat them in their Ivy League opener in January. The longtime rivals have had a lopsided affair in recent years, with Princeton winning the last 14 matchups.
On Saturday, the tide turned. The game came down to one final possession, and after Princeton’s Dalen Davis’s potential game-winning 9-foot jumper clanged off the rim, Penn’s bench stormed the court as streamers fell to celebrate its 61-60 victory at the Palestra. Now, Penn (11-10, 4-4 Ivy) has finally started a win streak of its own. Princeton fell to 8-15, 4-4.
“I don’t concern myself with what happened in 2018,” Quakers coach Fran McCaffery said in reference to snapping the program’s skid against the Tigers. “This team, we’re going to prepare them to win the next game on the schedule. That next game happened to be against Princeton. Kids really fought hard today. I’m really proud of [them]”
QUAKERS TOPPLE THE TIGERS.@PennMBB wins a thriller in front of an @ESPNU audience with a 61-60 win over Princeton. T.J. Power recorded 18 points and seven rebounds to lead the Quakers. 🌿🏀pic.twitter.com/gdRVyzh0Az
Fans should expect highlight performances from a player as talented as TJ Power, with the former Duke forward being the highest-ranked high school recruit to ever play for the Quakers. So far this season, he ranks 10th in the league in scoring (14.9 points per game) and third in rebounding (7.9).
But for the Quaker faithful, none of that matters unless you show up against Princeton — and that’s exactly what he did.
Power started the game 4-for-4 from the field, anchoring the offense while his teammates struggled. In the final two minutes with the lead at one following four straight points from Princeton’s Malik Abdullahi, Power would come through once again, lacing a corner three with 1 minute, 19 seconds left to give the Quakers a four-point lead that the Tigers couldn’t completely erase.
Penn’s TJ Power (12) splits a pair of Princeton defenders in Saturday’s win for the Quakers that snapped an eight-year losing streak to the Tigers.
“It’s kind of a blur when I think back on it,” Power said in reference to his winning shot. “We got some penetration. They kicked it out to AJ [Levine], and AJ had a good shot, and he made the unselfish play and passed it up for a great shot. And that shows what our team chemistry is like right there.”
Power finished with a team-high 18 points as well as seven rebounds and three assists — one of which led to a highlight slam from center Augie Gerhardt with 4:33 left.
The night before the game, Power recalled how the team spoke to alumni about the importance of the Princeton rivalry, which he said helped fuel the team.
“That’s when I really got a sense for this rivalry and what it means to past players, students, and coaches,” Power said. “So that was really cool to get some background and context heading into the game. I think it motivated a lot of our guys.”
Ethan Roberts and Michael Zanoni, the team’s No. 1 and 3 leading scorers, scored a collective five points against Princeton — with Roberts failing to notch a singular point for the first time in his Penn career.
McCaffery hinted at a lack of foul calls being the cause of Roberts’ offensive struggles.
“What’s happening to Michael and Ethan is disappointing,” McCaffery said. “A lot of physicality there. They should be shooting free throws.”
Solidified starter
At the start of the season, there were plenty of question marks regarding who would be the starting point guard for Penn. Now, following an injury to guard Dylan Williams, AJ Levine finds himself excelling in that role.
The 6-foot sophomore guard has improved in conference play, going from 5.5 points per game against nonconference competition to 12 points per game against the Ivy opponents, which showed against the Tigers.
Levine finished the game with 13 points, three assists, and three steals.
Penn’s AJ Levine has been strong in-conference play and continued that against the Tigers behind a 13-point performance.
“He got off got himself off to a good start in both halves today,” McCaffery said. “But it’s his decision-making that is just so much improved. He’s playing under control. He’s playing with great confidence, and that’s how we’re going to have to continue to play, because there’s going to be nights when guys are off.”
It was Levine’s strong defensive play which led to Princeton’s missed final shot.
“After he shot it,” Levine said. “All I thought in my head was I did everything I could in that moment, I put my entire effort out there all game. There was not a moment where I let up. I can’t really focus on the results of that. I put everything into that stop at the end. Once it missed, it was the biggest relief ever.”
Up next
The Quakers now look for back-to-back wins when they welcome Columbia (14-8, 3-5) to the Palestra on Friday (7 p.m., ESPN+).
For the sixth straight season, Penn took a quiet bus ride home from Jadwin Gymnasium.
On Friday, the Quakers (13-8, 3-5 Ivy League) took a familiar drive up I-95 to take on No. 23 Princeton (19-2, 7-1 Ivy League). Penn entered the game with confidence after beating Columbia, the only team in the Ivy League to take down Princeton, last weekend.
Despite impressive performances from Simone Sawyer (16 points ) and Mataya Gayle (16 points), the Penn women’s basketball team lost to Princeton for the 16th straight time. They fell, 69-50.
“The seniors haven’t won a game against Princeton,” head coach Mike McLaughlin said. “Instead of pretending that didn’t happen, we addressed it like, ‘You could be the group that gets a win here.’ I think they were just disappointed.”
Star Power
A familiar narrative unfolded for Penn in the first half as Gayle jump-started the offense.
Following a sluggish first frame, Gayle took over in the second quarter, dropping eight points to help Penn take a 30-28 halftime lead.
“She made plays off the dribble,” McLaughlin said. “They struggled to contain her. She made some attack, kicks, penetration. We just couldn’t convert.”
Katie Collins, Gayle’s most reliable second punch, didn’t have the same success — finishing with seven points and snapping her 13-game double-digit scoring streak against Princeton.
Can’t guard Hutcherson
Sawyer scored seven of Penn’s 11 points in the third quarter, but a flaming hot shooting performance from Princeton’s Olivia Hutcherson broke the game open for the Tigers.
The 6-foot guard scored nine of her total 19 points in the third quarter. Hutcherson’s efforts were capped off by an assist for a three-pointer and layup from center Fadima Tall, opening the fourth with a 14-point lead and a Penn timeout.
Penn couldn’t climb out of the hole, scoring only seven points in the final frame to finish with under 60 points for the third time in Ivy League Play.
“We were tough the first half,” McLaughlin said. “There were moments of really good play there into half time up to start of the third. End of the third quarter started, they start to pull away a little bit… we just struggled to get stops from them.”
Team Game
The Tigers played seven players for over 16 minutes in the matchup, with three players scoring over 15. On the flip side, Penn kept a tighter rotation — with only six players playing over 15 minutes despite playing in a physically demanding 3-2 zone defense.
“We’ve been working with them in practice trying to get that next kid or two,” McLaughlin said. “Honestly, they haven’t been overly productive in practice settings, to really get those minutes.”
Penn coach Mike McLaughlin says his needs “to find a little lightning here” with less than a month left in the regular season.
Four players scored in the double digits for the Quakers, but the end of the bench lacked punch as Saniah Caldwell and Brooke Suttle produced two points on six shots in a combined 47 total minutes.
McLaughlin is actively waiting for someone on the roster to step up and keep the program’s Ivy League Championship hopes alive — and will be expanding the team’s guard rotation next week versus Cornell and Columbia.
“We need to find a little lightning here,” McLaughlin said. “We need to find someone off the bench to get a basket for us. And I think this week’s a big week for that. We play back to back again. We’re not going to do it without someone stepping up. It’s not just two people. So see what this week looks like. But I’m with you. I think we need another person there, and that’s trying to connect.
Up Next
Penn looks to rebound on Friday against Cornell (8-12, 3-4 Ivy League) in Ithaca (6 p.m., ESPN+).
When Ronald Moore became an NCAA Tournament hero in 2009, TikTok and Instagram had not yet been invented. The iPhone was in only its second iteration, the 3G, and the first one had been launched just two years before.
You could certainly become a national sensation, but it would have been with a highlight reel play instead of a viral one.
Yet for all that has changed in technology since then — to say nothing of all that has changed in college basketball — some things never go out of style. A mid-major toppling a Big Ten beast in March is certainly one of them.
It was news enough that Siena had taken Ohio State to overtime, and all the better since the game was in Dayton, just over an hour from Columbus. With 9.1 seconds left in the extra session, the Saints trailed the Buckeyes, 65-62.
Moore, a Plymouth Meeting native who was then a junior guard from Plymouth-Whitemarsh High, took the inbounds pass and raced up the floor. When he neared the three-point arc, he faked left on Ohio State’s P.J. Hill and dribbled right. Hill bit, Moore let fly, and the shot was inch-perfect.
As CBS announcers Verne Lundqist and Bill Raftery joined the crowd in delirium, Ohio State’s Jon Diebler shot a potential game-winner off the rim. A second overtime beckoned.
“The little guy that could!” Raftery exclaimed over replays of 6-foot-tall Moore’s three, including a wide-eyed Siena coach Fran McCaffery and an even more wide-eyed bench.
With 19 seconds left in the second OT, future 76er Evan Turner’s gutsy layup put Ohio State ahead, 72-71. Moore again took the inbounds pass, this time dribbling left, then toward the middle.
He passed to Edwin Ubiles, who gave a pump fake, a dribble, and a pass back out of a triple team to the man of the hour. The clock read 5.4 when Moore let fly.
“Three-pointer … Yes!” Lundquist roared, with Raftery landing an “Oh!” right on top of his partner.
Then came the moment that really sticks in many fans’ minds: Raftery’s “Onions! Double order!” exclamation. The sport’s king of rhetorical flourishes had never taken his most famous line to that level, and it’s still rare.
Bill Raftery (left) calling a game on CBS with former Villanova coach Jay Wright in 2022.
Had Turner made the running jumper he missed on Ohio State’s last possession, perhaps all of this would have been forgotten. But the ball rolled around the rim and out, and the nation had a new star.
‘A great moment in time’
Countless fans of Cinderella have memories of Moore’s heroics. So does Siena’s all-time assists leader, now 37 and settled back in his hometown as an assistant coach at Penn.
“They’re always vivid,” he said in an interview this week. “I’m blessed to have had that moment in my basketball career. And every March, it’s always a flashback, whether someone brings it to my attention or I catch a glimpse of it in some of the highlight reels they play of March Madness.”
And he still gets “the same feeling every time I see it — just because of what it meant to not only the university, but to myself, to my teammates. So it’s always a great moment in time when I flash back and look at those shots.”
McCaffery, now at the helm of Penn, hasn’t forgotten either, just as he hasn’t forgotten many of his great moments as a player and a coach. But he offered a reminder of something those fans might have forgotten: Siena was a ninth seed that year, and this was its second straight tournament with a win.
Ronald Moore (left) celebrates with teammates after his famous game-winning three-pointer.
“In the moment you’re just thinking about adjustments, personnel — what are we in defensively? What are they in? Are we in the bonus?” McCaffery recalled. “With that team, it was easy to trust your guys. It was a veteran group, they were really smart, and they were incredibly mentally tough. So you can play Ohio State in Ohio [and] nobody’s rattled at all.”
McCaffery also recalled what followed: “That was as good a locker room celebration as I can remember.”
After graduating in 2010, Moore went on to play professional basketball in Europe for 11 years, for teams in Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Italy, and France. He retired from the court in 2021, then returned to his hometown to run a youth basketball outfit.
“I felt that it was something that was my calling, just to kind of help the next generation and give all the knowledge that I possibly can to help those kids try to help achieve their goals and their dreams in the game of basketball,” he said. “It’s brought me so much that I wanted to be able to help someone do the same.”
Then, last spring, his old college coach returned to his hometown, and his alma mater. When McCaffery hired Moore to the staff at Penn, some people of a certain age reacted: “That Ronald Moore?”
Ronald Moore watching Penn’s players practice at the Palestra this week.
Yes, that Ronald Moore. He and his old coach had stayed in close touch over the years. They traded text messages, and when time allowed, Moore would visit McCaffery at Iowa, where the coach moved in 2010. Their families got to know each other, too.
“It’s just the type of person Fran is, man,” Moore said. “I think a lot of people get a misconception of when he’s out here yelling and trying to motivate guys on the floor, but off the court, he’s always been an open book, and someone who would be approachable to talk about anything.”
Hiring him made ‘perfect sense’
McCaffery had long felt Moore would make a good coach someday, and had told him so.
“I always thought about having him on my staff no matter where I was, but it makes perfect sense in Philadelphia, where we’re both from,” McCaffery said.
Now Moore’s experiences make him even better-suited for the job.
“He’s played at an incredibly high level internationally,” McCaffery said. “He’s played for some really good coaches — played for some coaches who probably weren’t very good, and that’s part of the growth in this profession. … But his knowledge is just next-level of the game. So the coaching side of it is easy.”
Ronald Moore (second from right) and fellow Penn assistant coach Ben Luber talking with players during a preseason scrimmage last fall.
When the offer came to join Penn’s staff, Moore felt that “it just was a full-circle moment.” And he was ready.
“Many people have asked me, ‘Hey, have you ever thought about getting into college coaching?’” he said. “I had plenty of friends that coached at the college level, so I knew what it entails, but I didn’t really want to move around. So him coming back to Penn and getting that phone call, it kind of just seemed like a no-brainer.”
On top of that, he now has a key to the Palestra, his city’s basketball shrine. He appreciates that too with one of its annual rituals played on Saturday’s. The 61-60 win over rival Princeton, ended an 8-year, 14-game skid an offered a measure of Penn’s progress this season.
“You soak it all in when you’re in this place and it’s quiet and nobody’s around — you kind of can stand back and look at it from a different lens,” Moore said. “Having been able to play here as a college player, play here as a high school player, knowing what it means to the city of Philadelphia, and just its history in general, it’s a special place to be able to work at and come in every day.”
Fran McCaffery embraces Ronald Moore after Siena’s upset of Ohio State.
Penn rallied to defeat Columbia on Saturday evening at the Palestra a day after a narrow loss to Cornell, closing out a two-day stretch of Ivy League games on a high note.
The 64-55 win over the Lions (14-6, 5-2) marked the first win over Columbia in three years for the Quakers (13-7, 3-4) and kept alive Penn’s hopes of competing for the Ivy title. It also dropped the Lions out of a tie for first place with Princeton.
And it erased the pain of a nail-biting 62-58 home loss to the Big Red on Friday that snapped a two-game Quakers winning streak.
“We were hungry,” said Penn guard Mataya Gayle, who finished with a team-high 16 points and seven assists against Columbia. “We wanted it. I think that showed in how we played. We were all over the court. We know they’re a good team, but we put in our heads that today we’re going to be the better team.”
The Lions entered boasting a 5-1 Ivy record after defeating No. 19 Princeton on Friday night. On the flip side, Penn’s loss to Cornell put it at sixth in the Ivy League — three games back from competing for a spot in the league tournament.
Following the loss, Penn coach Mike McLaughlin pressured the team to step up its effort, knowing the kind of battle the players had ahead of them.
“I challenged them that you can’t be outplayed,” McLaughlin said. “You can get out-skilled, but you can’t have someone play harder than you.”
Penn head coach Mike McLaughlin urged his team to play with intensity following a Friday night loss to Cornell. The result? A big win against league-leading Columbia.
Against Columbia, it was evident that the players took that advice to heart. Using a 3-2 zone defense for a majority of the matchup, the Quakers held Columbia to 32.3% shooting from the floor.
“Losing to Cornell was not ideal,” Gayle said. “Our backs were against the wall, but I think that also gave us another boost today. We went out there like we had the most to lose, but also nothing to lose. We competed. You saw everyone on the court doing what they needed to do, the little things. We took yesterday’s loss and learned from it, and that translated today.”
‘Not an easy task’
McLaughlin has been looking for players to step up and support the team’s stars, Katie Collins (nine points) and Gayle, and for the first time in Ivy League play, he got his wish.
Every player to log more than three minutes for Penn scored at least eight points, which helped overcome a 24-point night from Columbia guard Riley Weiss. The supporting cast was headlined by a double-double from center Tina Njike, who bounced back from a difficult 13-minute performance against Cornell to finish with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Penn center Tina Njike (10) seen in a game earlier this season, finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds in a win over Columbia on Saturday.
“I’m really proud of Tina,” McLaughlin said. “Thirty-five minutes. It’s not an easy task for anyone.”
Brooke Suttle, whom McLaughlin has relied upon as the team’s de facto sixth man, also shined, scoring 11 points.
Honoring the 2001 team
In attendance was Penn’s 2001 championship team, which was honored at halftime in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the program’s first Ivy League title.
Penn, coached by Kelly Greenberg, went 14-0 in league play en route to securing the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid with a record of 22-6.
“It was a great building tonight,” McLaughlin said in reference to the former players’ support. “That was about as fun as I think these kids can play in this environment. And I want them to experience that, too. All this came together tonight.”
After Penn’s disappointing 6-4 finish in football, which resulted in the departure of longtime coach Ray Priore, the program saw several upperclassmen enter the transfer portal as they ran out of Ivy League eligibility.
Some of those players moved on to bigger programs. As of now, seven former Quakers are committed to other schools.
Headlining those transfers is a trio on offense: quarterback Liam O’Brien and wide receivers Jared Richardson and Bisi Owens.
O’Brien is heading to Cincinnati, Richardson looks to make an impact at Duke, and Owens will join Purdue.
“Having an opportunity at Penn to showcase what I could do and that translating into an opportunity like this,” O’Brien said, “I mean, the way college football is nowadays — it’s pretty much like the minor leagues to the pros. It’s almost like a childhood dream.”
The trio grew close in the summer after their freshman season at Penn but had to wait much longer before taking the field together.
Richardson and Owens excelled during their sophomore year, while O’Brien battled injuries and served as a backup to Aidan Sayin. O’Brien didn’t get his opportunity on the field until his junior year, when Sayin suffered a season-ending elbow injury against Yale in 2024.
“Penn is not a football-first school,” O’Brien said. “But you can make it one. The one thing Penn does is it provides you [with] opportunities to succeed in whatever you do, and both on and off the field. All of us have really taken advantage of that for good.”
In 2024, Liam O’Brien broke Penn’s record for passing touchdowns and total touchdowns in a game.
In his second start, O’Brien broke Penn’s record for passing touchdowns (six) and total touchdowns in a game (seven).
After a full offseason, O’Brien, Richardson, and Owens powered the Quakers offense in 2025, finishing third in the Ivy League in passing yards per game and second in offensive efficiency.
Richardson and Owens combined for the most yards (1,729) and touchdowns (17) among Ivy League wide receiver duos. Richardson ranked 13th in receiving yards (1,033), first in receptions per game (eight), and fourth in total receiving touchdowns (12) across all of the Football Championship Subdivision.
“We came in together,” Richardson said. “We worked our tails off. All of us being successful, it’s nothing short of special. It’s a blessing for each and all of us.”
New opportunity
O’Brien is already on Cincinnati’s campus, preparing for spring ball. He’ll be competing for the starting job as the Bearcats also brought in quarterback JC Frenchfrom Georgia Southern.
“The quarterback room is seeing a big change-up,” O’Brien said. “They lost their starter last year, lost their backup from last year. So they brought me in and brought in the quarterback from Georgia Southern. Right now, it’s an open job, and may the best man win.”
For Richardson, a quick exploration of Duke’s campus made him eager to cancel his other planned visits. He hopes to carve out a role for himself on a star-studded team that won an ACC championship this past season.
He also still has dreams of playing in the NFL.
Next season, Jared Richardson will play for Duke, which won the ACC Championship in 2025.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Richardson said. “I’m embracing that. I don’t want it to be easy. I want to leave a legacy. That’s my goal behind playing football. I want to provide my family with a life that they never got to have. So that’s what drives me. I’m not afraid of working hard, sweating a little bit. I just embrace the grind.”
For Owens, the chance to lead a young Purdue receiving corps was too good an opportunity to pass up. Plus, he wanted to make the leap to the Big 10.
“Getting to play in front of at least 60,000 people every week,” Owens said, “it’s a lot different than playing at Franklin Field, which gets 7,000 on a good day. It’s been a complete whirlwind the past couple of weeks, but all trending in the right direction, and definitely more excited than worried or nervous, because this is another challenge for me to take on.”
Goodbye, Penn
The three will be leaving Penn with Ivy League degrees, but according to them, the most valuable part of their experience in West Philadelphia was the relationships they formed.
“These Penn brothers are ones I will have for a lifetime,” Owens said. “I’m never going to forget that. So at the end of the day, Penn will always be my home.”
O’Brien and Richardson echoed that statement and emphasized how special their bond is.
“Building a relationship with these guys, it was awesome these past four years,” Richardson said. “It was a pleasure playing with Bisi and Liam, and these guys are my best friends. So I can’t wait to see what they do. I’ll be in their corner rooting for them.”
“It’s going to be fun to keep in touch with everyone after and throughout this year,” O’Brien added. “After this year, and after the fall season, and just compare experiences. See what it was like. See who does what at the next level. Because I think some of the guys are going to do big things.”
Rollie Massimino “did not mess around” when it came to drawing up defensive schemes against Patrick Ewing … or warding off gambling temptations that might filter through to his Villanova players.
“When we were playing, we had an FBI agent who was a former ’Nova basketball player give talks about gambling,” said Chuck Everson, a member of Massimino’s 1985 Wildcats title team that took down heavily favored Georgetown.
“Rollie did not mess around with that stuff. It wasn’t that far removed from the Boston College [point-shaving] scandal. Rollie brought in the FBI to talk to us. Coach Mass did a great job of teaching us, and it wasn’t all basketball; it was life lessons. And with gambling, it was, ‘Don’t do that.’
“To this day, I have never called DraftKings, or anything like that. I attribute that to being scared straight with Coach Mass.”
Everson, 61, played in an era when sports betting wasn’t legal in most of the country. These days, things are quite different. College athletes are compensated by their schools or through lucrative name, image, and likeness deals, and the legal/illegal gambling culture infiltrates every level of sports.
Last Thursday in Philadelphia, federal authorities announced a sweeping criminal indictment and related filings against 26 people on charges related to manipulating NCAA games and Chinese professional games through bribes, some as high as five figures.
It is the fourth federal criminal indictment that involves gambling and sports unsealed in the last six months, and the latest alleged gambling scheme involves one of the storied Big 5 programs: La Salle.
According to the indictment, at least one of the purported rigged games took place in 2024 in Philadelphia between La Salle and St. Bonaventure.
There are at least 39 players from 17 NCAA Division I schools who are alleged to have been involved in the scheme, but the indictment may underscore other, more troubling concerns.
Players at mid-major or smaller Division I programs might earn a fraction in NIL money compared to what their counterparts at elite programs take in, and therefore might be more susceptible to the temptations of illicit paydays. As one former federal prosecutor put it, this alleged scheme might be one of many dominoes waiting to fall.
“Anything that interferes with the integrity of sporting events, you’re going to get action by prosecutors,” said Edward McDonald, who prosecuted those involved in the Boston College point-shaving case in the late ’70s. McDonald, now senior counsel at the Dechert law firm, thinks that mid-major schools, like La Salle and some others in the Big 5, could be particularly vulnerable to gambling and bribery schemes.
“These smaller schools, the compensation to players is not as great [compared to larger programs], even for the better players on the team,” said McDonald, who learned of the Boston College scam through his investigations of organized crime family members with the Justice Department (and played himself in the Martin Scorsese-directed mob film Goodfellas).
“Players going to big-time schools are making 10 times more. A player [at a smaller program] might not be having a good season or might think they’re not going to play in the NBA or professionally, and they might say, ‘What the hell, I might as well cash in now.’”
Prop bets on a La Salle game
According to the court filings, one of the defendants, Jalen Smith, and former LSU and NBA player Antonio Blakeney (who is “charged elsewhere,” according to the indictment), attempted to recruit players on the La Salle men’s basketball team for the point-shaving scheme.
The fixers offered the La Salle players payments to underperform and influence the first half of a game against St. Bonaventure on Feb. 21, 2024, according to the filings.
Prosecutors allege that before the game at Tom Gola Arena, defendants who acted as fixers placed bets totaling approximately $247,000 on the Bonnies to cover the first-half spread. A $30,000 wager was made in Philadelphia at a FanDuel sportsbook, according to the indictment. But those bets failed after La Salle covered the spread.
“Neither the university, current student-athletes, or staff are subjects of the indictment,” La Salle wrote in a statement. “We will fully cooperate as needed with officials and investigations.”
La Salle coach Fran Dunphy directing the Explorers in November 2023. Dunphy retired after last season.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told The Inquirer that several years ago he received complaints from a number of college coaches in his state about online abuse directed at players and threatening calls from gamblers who had lost big.
“I called up [NCAA president] Charlie Baker, and asked him, ‘What do you think of prop betting?’” DeWine said. “He said, ‘We don’t like it.’ And I said, ‘Give me a letter that says that.’
“Under Ohio law, if I can get a letter from a league saying, ‘Don’t bet on certain things,’ that gives me the ability to go to my Casino Commission and they can [enact rules] without any legislation. Charlie sent the letter, I took that to the commission, and that stopped collegiate prop betting.”
The Ohio Casino Control Commission granted the NCAA’s request to prohibit proposition bets on collegiate sports in February 2024, but the decision affected only Ohio.
“It doesn’t really eliminate the problem,” DeWine said.
The ban in Ohio is only a drop in the bucket against a sea of pro-gambling momentum, legislation, and, most significantly, lucrative revenue streams.
CJ Hines, a guard who was dismissed from Temple’s basketball team on Jan. 16, allegedly participated in a point-shaving scheme during the 2024-25 season while playing for Alabama State, according to the indictment. Hines transferred to Temple in May but didn’t play this season after the university announced that he was under investigation for eligibility concerns before his enrollment.
Former Alabama State guard CJ Hines (3) averaged 14.1 points in 35 starts last season.
The Atlantic 10 Conference — which includes La Salle and St. Joseph’s — weighed in on the latest gambling indictment.
“Any activity that undermines the integrity of competition has no place in college athletics,” commissioner Bernadette V. McGlade said in a release. “The Atlantic 10 and its member institutions will continue to work closely with the proper authorities to combat illegal activities.”
A St. Joe’s spokesperson added: “St. Joseph’s University has not been approached by federal investigators or any other entity about suspicious sports wagering activity involving St. Joe’s student-athletes or team.”
Villanova, which plays in the powerful Big East Conference, has numerous resources and protocols in place to address the sports wagering issue.
Handbooks, which include NCAA rules on gambling, are distributed annually to athletes, who also must sign a sports wagering document before being declared eligible. The athlete must acknowledge he or she won’t engage in activities that influence the outcome or win-loss margins of any game.
In 2021, 2023, and 2025, Villanova brought in speakers who have a history with sports gambling to talk with athletes about the risks and dangers associated with it. Villanova’s athletic compliance office meets twice annually with every athlete to review NCAA compliance standards, including its rules on sports wagering.
Former Villanova basketball star Maddy Siegrist told The Inquirer last year that her college alma mater ingrained in her mind the potential devastating consequences of gambling, values that she continues to adhere to as a WNBA player.
‘The integrity of sports is at risk’
Even after the 2018 Supreme Court ruling that legalized sports wagering state to state, the honesty and integrity component still comes into question when so much is riding on any sports wager.
DeWine, the Ohio governor, is taking a proactive role in trying to address malfeasance in the gaming culture.
“I’m writing letters to all other major [sports] leagues,” DeWine said. “They need to get on this. If they sit back, they’re making a huge mistake. I think the integrity of sports is at risk. I’m continuing to urge these leagues to take care of business, because they’re the ones that are going to get hurt.”
But McDonald said that with the flurry of recent indictments involving sports and gambling, “you have to wonder how pervasive [the illegal gambling problem] really is.”
“This could very well be the tip of the iceberg,” McDonald said.
BOSTON — Thomas Batties II and Tey Barbour each scored 17 points Monday as Harvard held off Penn, 64-63, in an Ivy League game at Lavietes Pavilion.
Barbour made a driving layup with 13 seconds left to extend Harvard’s lead to 64-59 and the Crimson held off a comeback by the Quakers.
Ethan Roberts led the way for the Quakers (9-8, 2-2 Ivy) with 27 points and two steals. AJ Levine added 15 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals. TJ Power also had 12 points. Penn saw a two-game winning streak come to an end.
Batties also contributed six rebounds and three blocks for the Crimson (10-8, 3-1). Barbour shot 6 for 11, including 3 for 8 from beyond the arc. Robert Hinton shot 5 for 13 to finish with 11 points.
Next up for Penn is a home game against Yale on Saturday at 2 p.m. (ESPNU).
