Late Three-Point Barrage Not Enough at Penn in 58-51 Loss

Friday, January 30

Philadelphia, Pa.

7:00 PM

Dartmouth College

8-9, 1-2Ivy

Penn

6-10, 1-1Ivy

Dartmouth

Penn

Late Three-Point Barrage Not Enough at Penn in 58-51 Loss

1/30/2015 8:54:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Highlights Archive of Video Broadcast Box Score (HTML)

By: Dartmouth

PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — The Penn defense put a stranglehold on Dartmouth's offense for the first 32 minutes, and it was enough to allow the Quakers to hold on to defeat the visiting Big Green on Friday night at The Palestra, 58-51. Penn (6-10, 1-1 Ivy) got a career-high 18 points from Matt Howard and Tony Hicks added 11 in the second half to give the Quakers their first conference win of the season.

Junior Malik Gill led Dartmouth (8-9, 1-2 Ivy) with 15 points — the only points from the Big Green reserves — while senior Gabas Maldunas dropped in 14 on 6-of-9 shooting and junior Connor Boehm added 10.

By the time there were eight minutes left to play, the Big Green had just 11 field goals in 40 attempts as Penn opened up a 43-30 lead. But when junior Alex Mitola drained a three-pointer, he began a stretch in which Dartmouth knocked down 7-of-8 shots, five of which came from beyond the arc, cutting the deficit to three, 54-51, with 1:35 remaining.

A block by Boehm gave the Big Green the opportunity to possibly tie the score, but Gill's three-point shot under pressure was off the mark. Dartmouth went for one more defensive stop with a seven-second differential between the clock and shot clock, but Antonio Woods, who finished with 11 points, drove into the lane and knocked down a short jumper with 8.3 seconds to go. He then stole the inbounds pass and was fouled, making both free throws, to seal the victory for the Quakers.

Penn overcame 16 turnovers — 12 in the first half — due to its rebounding and ability to hit shots in the second half, knocking down 14-of-25 (.560) to finish at 46.5 percent (20-of-43). Even with the late shooting surge in the final eight minutes, the Big Green finished the game making just 36.0 percent (18-of-50) from the floor and 5-of-19 (.263) from deep. But perhaps even more costly was their 10-of-19 (.526) performance at the foul line.

The first half was primarily a defensive struggle, particularly the first eight minutes. Penn held a 3-1 lead for most of that time until Maldunas laid in a shot for the first Big Green field goal with 12:11 on the clock. The scoring picked up for the next six minutes as Dartmouth scored on a variety of buckets in the paint to counter the Quakers' three-point shooting (first three field goals came from downtown) for a slim 13-12 lead.

Howard, who hit 6-of-8 from the floor with three treys, was able to get a tough shot in the lane to fall before drilling the fourth Penn triple of the opening stanza. After a John Golden foul shot, Howard added two free throws for a 19-14 lead. Over the final two and a half minutes, the Big Green managed just two freebies by Gill and Penn one by Mike Auger as the Quakers took a 20-16 lead into the locker room.

Penn turned the ball over 12 times in the first 20 minutes, but shut down the Dartmouth offense as the Big Green hit just 6-of-24 field goals (.250) with nary a three-pointer in six tries. The offense wasn't much better at the Quaker end, however, as Penn also had just six field goals in 18 attempts (.333), but those four threes were the difference on the scoreboard.

Although Mitola, the Ivy League's leader in three-point field goals this year, was held to just 2-of-10 from long range, he did managed to dish out five assists with just one turnover. Gill was one point shy of his career high, going 4-of-8 from the floor with two trifectas and 5-of-6 at the charity stripe. Leading the Big Green on the glass was Golden with six rebounds, matching a season best.

The unheralded star for Penn was forward Greg Louis, who was 4-of-5 from the floor while scoring 10 points and hauling in a game-high eight rebounds. Hicks, who played just three minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, had nine of his 11 points in the final nine minutes.

Dartmouth will attempt to split the Ivy weekend when it plays at Princeton (8-10, 1-1 Ivy) on Saturday at Jadwin Gym at 6 p.m. The Tigers fell at home to Harvard (12-5, 2-1 Ivy) tonight by a 75-72 score. Penn hosts the Crimson tomorrow night at 7 p.m.