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Basketball
Penn Athletics hires Liz Nobis as first-ever mental health professional
Nobis earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Biola University’s Rosemead School of Psychology in 2021 and has been serving as a postdoctoral fellow at Penn’s Counseling Services for the past year.
A toast to dear old Penn student-athletes
At the Quaker’s Choice Awards on Wednesday evening at the Palestra, Penn Athletics presented its major intercollegiate senior awards to five student-athletes.
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.
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.
Dingle, Padilla, pick up First-Team All-Ivy honors
The sophomore on the men’s basketball team and junior on the women’s basketball team both led the Ivy League in scoring.
Quakers shooting for spot in Big Dance
Penn will compete in the Ivy League Tournament this weekend for a spot in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Quakers take on Yale on Saturday in the semifinals.
Former hooper Bruce Lefkowitz elected to Big 5 Hall of Fame
The 1987 alumnus led the Quakers in scoring during his junior and senior seasons, and was the Red & Blue’s top rebounder in each of his four years.
Quakers wax Dartmouth on Senior Day
The women’s basketball team defeated the Big Green 79-54 on Saturday at the Palestra. Sophomore guard Jordan Obi led all scorers with 16 points.
Slajchert’s superb play secures Ivy Rookie of the Week status
The sophomore guard scored 18 points against Yale on Friday and 16 points against Brown on Saturday, including the game-winning bucket.
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.
In the News
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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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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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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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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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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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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