Penn gets Bitten with mistakes in Loss to Cornell to start 0-2 in Ivy League

Philadelphia: There is a certain feel when conference play in College Basketball gets in full motion, especially in the Ivy League where every game matters and that is what we saw on Saturday afternoon as the Penn Quakers battled Cornell Big Red from the Cathedral of College Basketball, The Palestra on the campus of Univeristy of Penn. The Quakers came into the game with a 4-10 record and 0-1 in Ivy League Play & in their last game they fell to Dartmouth, the Big Red made their way to University City with a 9-5 & 1-0 in conference play and off a win over Columbia

Before the game, Penn would announce that Michael Zanoni would not play today as he was sick

Lineup:

1H (19:59) | Penn 0, Cornell 0

No Zanoni today, so AJ steps into his spot in the lineup. We're underway at The Palestra!
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📊 https://t.co/YUl8O9RFMT #Whānau | #FightOnPenn 🔴🔵🏀 pic.twitter.com/PbeoR8SH6z

— Penn Men's Basketball (@PennMBB) January 18, 2025

How the game went:
In the first half, the Quakers would jump out to a 4-0 lead before Big Red got on the board & the Quakers at one point had good ball movement & clean passes to the point where the lead would be as high as 6 at 14-8 before Cornell would figure things out and went on a run of their own to the point that the Quakers did not have answer & the Lead would be as high as 11 at 42-31 at halftime.

One of the questions going into the second half was what Penn could do to counter whatever Cornell was doing which made it very challenging & answer was nothing as the Quakers came out very sluggish to the point where Cornell got the lead up to 20 at 59-39 with 16:27 left.  The Quakers would spend the majority of the second half trying to cut into the lead & they were able to & get it down to 9 at 67-58 with 8 minutes left, the Big Red just had answers to whatever the Quakers were attempting to do & the lead got up to  16 at 76-60 with 4:56 left.

Quakers Same Brown connected with 3 which got it down to 10 at 78-68 & everyone in the Palestra thought could the Quakers make this amazing comeback and have a great finish????

2H (2:06) | Cornell 78, Penn 68

We've scored seven points in the last 1:22 and pull within 10 on a Sam three-pointer. We take a timeout to set up our defense.#Whānau | #FightOnPenn 🔴🔵🏀 pic.twitter.com/lCWqEZICzN

— Penn Men's Basketball (@PennMBB) January 18, 2025

The Answer would be Not really as Penn would just run out of time and a crowd of 2,339 at the Palestra would see Cornell take a Bite out of the Quakers as they win this battle 86-76

The story of this game was the start of the second half as Cornell would jump all over the Quakers and did not know how to respond and it showed in their attempt to get back into the game

Postgame:

Penn Coach Steve Donahue:

I asked #Penn Coach Steve Donahue about why they were unable to stain runs to get back in this game and their loss to Cornell #FightOnPenn #IvyLeague pic.twitter.com/XwRHKg7mqc

— David Malandra Jr (@DaveMReports) January 18, 2025

Cornell Coach Jon Jaques:

Final Numbers:

What is next:
The Penn Quakers now fall to 4-11 & 0-2 in Conference play & will attempt to get their 1st win in conference play as they go on the road at Harvard on January 20 while the Cornell Big Red goes to 10-5 & 2-0 in Conference play & prepares to remain undefeated in conference play when they face Brown also on January 20.