On Saturday afternoon, the women\u2019s basketball team (16-10, 8-6 Ivy) dropped their final regular game of the season 69-56 against Penn (17-10, 7-7 Ivy) at the Palestra in Philadelphia. But before play started in Philly, the Bears had already solidified their position in the Ivy Madness Tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can play better, and we\u2019ve shown that we have the ability to do so,\u201d Alyssa Moreland \u201926 wrote in an email to The Herald. \u201cThere are definitely areas to improve, but we are grateful to have another week to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opening tip-off saw Olivia Young \u201927 win possession of the ball. Brown took to the offensive but a travel call resulted in an early turnover.<\/p>\n
Despite Bruno\u2019s aggressive play, it was Penn who nabbed the first basket when the Quakers\u2019 Simone Sawyer dashed past Young and executed a perfect layup. Soon after, Ada Anamekwe \u201926 made a clever pass to Moreland who leveled the score at 2-2.<\/p>\n
Bruno soon found themselves in a deficit, but Charlotte Adams-Lopez \u201929 rallied back with the first successful 3-pointer of the game. For the next couple of minutes, back-and-forth play continued and it seemed that neither side would take a substantial lead.<\/p>\n
Up 9-8 with just seconds left in the first quarter, Grace Arnolie \u201926 searched desperately for a break in the defense to rack up one more basket. Seeing none, Arnolie launched a three. The ball arced through the air and swished cleanly through the net as time expired, earning Brown a 12-8 lead going into the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Just under 5 minutes into the quarter, Brown managed to secure a 21-15 lead. Unfortunately, this would mark their largest lead for the rest of the game, as Penn\u2019s comeback was jumpstarted seconds later when the Quakers\u2019 Mataya Gayle sank a three.<\/p>\n
After a series of back-and-forth baskets, Brown led by just one point with under two minutes left in the quarter.<\/p>\n
When Gayle went for a layup, Beth Nelson \u201926 attempted to stop her but inadvertently fouled to give Penn two bagged free throws. And with about 40 seconds left in the half, Nelson fouled again, allowing Sawyer to boost Penn\u2019s lead to five points.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, this game was not our best effort and did not reflect how we usually play,\u201d Young wrote in an email to The Herald. \u201cOur defense usually wins us games because of elite communication and a team effort to contain the ball, but we didn\u2019t show up how we needed to last Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our performance, both individually and as a team, was disappointing because of this,\u201d Young added.<\/p>\n
After Quaker Tina Njike\u2019s layup made it a 7-point lead for Penn just 10 seconds into the third quarter, it looked like Penn was about to pull away. But Nelson earned redemption after a quick pass found her behind the 3-point line. Nelson smoothly finished the contested three to end Penn\u2019s streak and Anamekwe followed in her footsteps with a layup, encroaching on Penn\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n
The Bears took the lead 38-37 following two free throws and a layup from Moreland, but Penn soon took full control of the game. Penn went on a 15-5 run, leaving Bruno trailing as the third quarter ended 43-52.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had some positive runs, but overall we could not close the gap and finish the game,\u201d Moreland wrote.<\/p>\n
Brown kicked off the final quarter taking charge in an effort to close the 9-point deficit. After a missed attempt by Arnolie gave possession to Penn, the Quakers reignited their offense. The Quakers were soon up by a dozen points, and by the last two minutes of the quarter, their lead was a staggering 67-53.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sawyer saw an opportunity to widen this gap as she drove past Sela Klein \u201928 and bagged a layup, bringing Penn\u2019s lead to 16 points.<\/p>\n
Bruno tallied the last hoop when Charlotte Climenhage \u201927 found Mady Calhoun \u201926 for a three. But with 23 seconds left on the clock, Brown had no time to make up Penn\u2019s lead, and the final score rested at 56-69.<\/p>\n
\u201cPenn came out very intense, and we didn\u2019t adjust as well as we should have early on,\u201d Moreland wrote. \u201cWe could have executed our game plan better, which we will do so moving on.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The loss bore no impact on Brown\u2019s position in the playoffs. The Bears will face Princeton in the Ivy Madness semifinals this Friday in Ithaca, looking to secure a spot in the finals of the tournament for the first time ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the potential and belief that we can pull off a big upset as the 4 seed,\u201d Young wrote. \u201cCleaning up our defensive communication will put us in a much better position to win our next game against Princeton, and that, coupled with better offensive execution, will be important keys to winning our next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rahul Sameer<\/p>\n
Rahul Sameer is a staff writer from Singapore. He plans to concentrate in Applied Mathematics. In his free time, he plays tennis and Mahjong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Saturday afternoon, the women\u2019s basketball team (16-10, 8-6 Ivy) dropped their final regular game of the season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-530680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}