Penn’s Hot Shooting Leads Quakers Past Big Green

Saturday, January 6

Philadelphia, Pa. / The Palestra

2:00 PM

Dartmouth College

4-10,0-1Ivy League

Penn

9-7,1-0Ivy League

Dartmouth

Penn

Photo by: Justin Lafleur

Penn’s Hot Shooting Leads Quakers Past Big Green

1/6/2024 6:28:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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Junior Ryan Cornish scored a season-high 17 points in the defeat

By: Justin Lafleur

PHILADELPHIA — Penn scored 37 points in the span of 8:20 in the first half to turn a 9-4 Quakers' lead into a 46-17 advantage, a deficit the Dartmouth men's basketball team couldn't overtime in an 80-51 defeat on Saturday afternoon inside the Palestra. The Big Green responded from Penn's run with a 16-4 run of their own, bridging the end of the first half and beginning of the second, but Dartmouth couldn't get any closer than 17.

With its win, Penn improves to 9-7 overall, 1-0 in the Ivy League. The Big Green fall to 4-10 and 0-1 in Ivy play.

After starting 1-of-8 from the floor, Penn hit 15 of its next 16 shots, including nine straight from 3-point range, in an incredible shooting display. On the other end, junior Ryan Cornish led the Big Green offense with a season-high 17 points. Sophomore Jayden Williams added 13 points. The duo combined to shoot 6-of-13 from 3-point range (3-of-6 for Cornish and 3-of-7 for Williams) while the rest of the team was 3-of-18. No other Big Green player, other than Cornish and Williams, scored more than three points.

First year Tyler Perkins led the Quakers in scoring with 19 points, all coming in the first half. He finished 5-of-8 from 3-point range.

"I thought [Penn] came out very aggressively and really set the tone the first possession," said Dartmouth head coach David McLaughlin. "We talked a lot about rebounding coming into the game and first possession, we give up two offensive rebounds. They set the tone and I think that energy gave them confidence in their shooting.

"We knew they were a good shooting team and they were letting it fly," McLaughlin continued. "When they were stretching the floor, and they have an inside-out attack like that, that's hard to counter. I don't think we were tight enough to shooters in the first half and they made shots."

Penn scored the game's first four points, but the Big Green answered with a Williams 3-pointer and Connor Christensen free throw to even the score.

The Quakers responded with the next 10 points, capped off by a Niklas Polonowski 3-pointer, to take a 14-4 lead into the under-12 media timeout. That three started the streak of nine consecutive made treys from Penn. The Quakers' lead reached 20 for the first time after a Sam Brown triple gave Penn a 34-14 lead with 6:44 on the first-half clock. The margin reached as much as 29, 46-17, with 3:14 left in the first half.

Dartmouth ended the first half with seven of the final eight points. In that run, Williams connected on a 3-pointer, Mitchell-Day converted a field goal in the post and Cornish knocked down a jumper in the paint. That pulled the Big Green within 47-24 after 20 minutes of play.

Dartmouth began the second half on a 9-3 run to increase its run to 16-4 bridging the end of the first half. Cornish scored five of the Big Green's nine points, while sophomore Jackson Munro hit a 3-pointer to pull Dartmouth within 50-33, forcing a Penn timeout with 15:49 on the clock.

The Big Green hold a 9-3 edge this half and are on a 16-4 run since the end of the first half. Still a long way to go in this one.

Watch on @ESPNPlus: https://t.co/oibToIYxyx #TheWoods🌲 | #GoBigGreen pic.twitter.com/aKVjIwBQVe
— Dartmouth Men's Basketball (@DartmouthMBB) January 6, 2024

The Quakers had an answer, building their lead back to 25 as another Polonowski 3-pointer made the score 60-35 with 11:38 remaining.

Penn continued to build its lead and Dartmouth could never recover. The Big Green scored eight points in the game's final 1:27, which included a Robert McRae III 3-point play, Izaiah Robinson 3-pointer and two free throws from first year Patrick Tivnan Jr., marking Tivnan's first collegiate points.

"At halftime, we talked to our guys about a tougher mindset to come out with," said McLaughlin. "I thought they did in the second half for the most part, but when you're down that much, everything needs to go your way. Although they played tougher and more together, it was too much of a deficit to overcome."

For the game, Dartmouth shot 32.0 percent from the floor (16-of-50), including 29.0 percent from 3-point range (9-of-31). Penn finished at 50.9 percent (28-of-55) and 56.0 percent from behind the arc (14-of-25). The Quakers held a 39-27 edge in rebounds.

"They were hitting a lot of shots," said Cornish. "We have to stay in front of our man and be more disciplined to our principles. They shot it well, but we made them comfortable out there."

The Big Green return to action in nine days when they travel to defending Ivy League Champion Princeton for a 2 p.m. opening tipoff on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.