Basketball

From left, Mia Lakstigala, Kayla Padilla, Jordan Obi, and Jordan Dingle make moves with the ball during games.

Four Quakers score Big 5 accolades

Mia Lakstigala, Kayla Padilla, and Jordan Obi of the women’s basketball team and Jordan Dingle of the men’s basketball team picked up Big 5 postseason awards.

Wearing her Blue Penn jersey, Kennedy Suttle sits in the bleachers at the Palestra with her arms draped across the seats.

True grit: On the block with Kennedy Suttle

The senior forward on the women’s basketball team chats about playing basketball at age 3, working out with Dwight Howard, why she likes playing defense, her favorite memory from her Penn career, and her plans for the future.

Greg Johnson ・

Jordan Dingle, Kennedy Suttle, and Jordan Obi dribble the ball up the court.

Trio of Quakers earn weekly Ivy awards

The men’s and women’s basketball teams each dispatched Harvard on Saturday—the men at home and the women in Massachusetts—and three Quakers have been honored by the Ivy League for their performances against the Crimson.

Greg Johnson ・



In the News


Philadelphia Inquirer

Taylor Jenkins got his start as a Penn student trying to help kids in West Philly. Now he’s one of the NBA’s top coaches

Jenkins, one of just two NBA head coaches who didn’t play college ball. He was an economics major at Penn, coaching in a youth league at Sayre High School in West Philadelphia. Now he’s a finalist for the league’s Coach of the Year Award and his Grizzlies are championship contenders.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Fran McCaffery, returning to the NCAA Tournament with Iowa, was nicknamed ‘White Magic’ in his Sonny Hill League days

McCaffery, who played at La Salle College High and Penn and whose game revolved around slick hand balling, earned the nickname playing alongside Gene Banks and Lewis "Black Magic" Lloyd in the famous Sonny Hill League. He will be taking the Hawkeyes into the NCAA Tournament this week for the sixth time in his 12 seasons.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Penn’s Steve Donahue reflects on going from a 3-10 start to the Ivy tournament

Penn finished the regular season with a 9-5 record, good for third place in the standings, and 12-15 overall, after an injury-wracked season for key players.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

Penn men’s basketball players who sit for the national anthem explain their protest

“We want people to notice,” says senior Lucas Monroe, a captain. “We want them to ask us about it. … People see us sitting for the flag. Obviously, some people don’t like it.” He means really thinking about it. “We see racial gaps in pretty much every aspect of life, whether that be the health care system, education, housing. So for us, it’s about bringing light to the fact that while the anthem says that America stands for freedom and justice and equality for all—the land of the free—we want to highlight the fact that it doesn’t always live up to that,” says Jelani Williams.

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ESPN

Penn guard Jelani Williams’ first college basketball home game was 1,795 days in the making

After suffering three consecutive ACL tears and enduring a canceled season last year, Jelani Williams, a fifth-year senior, played in his first collegiate home game this month, with an 85-57 win over Lafayette at the Palestra. Williams suffered a torn ACL for the first time as a senior in high school, and it would be nearly five years before he had the chance to play in a real basketball game again.

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Philadelphia Inquirer

The Palestra returns to basketball life for the first time in 619 days

The Quakers men’s and women’s teams played at the historic arena for the first time since March 2020.

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