The University of Pennsylvania men’s basketball team is set to host Brown University in its Ivy League home opener on Saturday at The Palestra. Both teams are seeking their first conference win, with Penn coming off a narrow loss to Princeton and Brown having lost to Yale.
Saturday’s game marks the 147th meeting between the Quakers and the Bears. Penn leads the all-time series 114-32, but Brown has won both matchups in each of the last two seasons. Last year, Brown defeated Penn 88-79 at The Palestra and then secured an 82-72 victory in Providence. Ethan Roberts scored a combined 55 points for Penn across those games. The Quakers’ most recent win against Brown was a 90-69 result at home on February 18, 2023.
This season introduces changes to the Ivy League schedule format. Penn will play five of its first seven league games on the road before a stretch of five out of six at home, concluding with an away game at Brown on March 6. Only one traditional “Ivy weekend” will be played on the road this season—January 30-31 at Columbia and Cornell—with other trips scheduled differently.
Two upcoming Penn Ivy League games will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU: January 24 against Yale and February 7 against Princeton.
Statistically, sophomore AJ Levine is averaging four assists per game, ranking third among Ivy players behind Brown’s Jeremiah Jenkins (5.4 apg). Junior TJ Power has recorded four double-doubles this season, leading all Ivy League players in that category. Five different Penn players have received weekly honors from either the Ivy League or Philadelphia Big 5 so far this season: Levine (who was named Ivy League Player of the Week), Power, seniors Michael Zanoni and Ethan Roberts, and freshman Dalton Scantlebury.
In Monday’s loss to Princeton, five Quakers reached double figures in scoring—a season high—including Roberts with a team-high 19 points after returning from injury. Other contributors were Levine (15), Power (13), Zanoni (13), and Scantlebury (12).
Levine also recorded seven steals during an earlier win over NJIT—the highest by a Penn player since December 2006—and helped lead a late rally against Princeton by scoring part of a run that cut a deficit from fourteen points down to one.
Penn achieved a program record by making all nineteen free throws attempted during Monday’s game against Princeton; previously their best perfect performance was fifteen-for-fifteen in January 2011.
Junior Augustus Gerhart has collected thirty-six offensive rebounds this season—tied for most among Ivy players alongside Brown’s N’famara Dabo—while Scantlebury ranks fourth with thirty-four offensive boards.
The team’s three-point shooting percentage stands at just over thirty-nine percent for the season, placing them thirteenth nationally entering this weekend’s action.
For more information about upcoming games or broadcasts—including ESPN+ streaming details and audio coverage via Quaker Audio Network—fans can visit www.pennathletics.com/audio or follow @PennMBB on social media platforms X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.
