Penn Quakers men's basketball

The Penn Quakers men's basketball team is the college basketball program representing the University of Pennsylvania. As the fifteenth-winningest men's basketball program of all-time, the team from Penn had its greatest success from 1966 to 2007, a period of over 40 years. Penn plays in the Ivy League in NCAA Division I.

Contents

• Rivalries
• History
• NCAA tournament results
• NIT results
• CBI results
• Players awards
• General
• Coaching staff
• Team information
• References

On March 20, 1897, Penn and Yale played in the first basketball game with five players on a team. Prior to the formation of the Ivy League in 1956 Penn was a member of the Eastern Intercollegiate League (EIL) from 1903 thru 1955. Penn won 13 EIL Regular Season Championships – 1906, 1908, 1916, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1928, 1929, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1945, 1953. Penn was retroactively recognized as the pre-NCAA Tournament national champion for the 1919–20 and 1920–21 seasons by the Helms Athletic Foundation and for the 1919–20 season by the Premo-Porretta Power Poll.

Penn has appeared in one Final Four, in 1979. Penn trails only Princeton for the most Ivy League regular season championships with 25. (1966, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007). Princeton has won 26 championships since the 1956-57 season. Penn, however, has won 21 outright championships to Princeton's 18 outright championships. Their main Ivy League rivalry is with Princeton, whom they always play as the last regular season game. Combining the EIL and Ivy Championships Penn leads with 38 championships; Princeton 32; Columbia 14; Yale 13; Dartmouth 12; Cornell 8; Harvard 5; and Brown 1.

One of Penn's most memorable seasons came in 1979 when the Quakers advanced to the NCAA Tournament Final Four. With players such as Tony Price, the Quakers stunned the nation with victories over Iona, North Carolina, Syracuse, and St. John's to advance to the Final Four. The Quakers faced Earvin "Magic" Johnson and Michigan State in the national semifinals in Salt Lake City, Utah, but ultimately were met with defeat, 101–67. Other notable Penn teams include the team led by guards Matt Maloney and Jerome Allen during the mid-1990s and the nationally ranked teams of the early 1970s led by Dave Wohl, Steve Bilsky, Corky Calhoun and Bob Morse. Penn's 1970–71 team completed an undefeated regular season (26–0) and advanced to the Eastern Regional Final in the NCAA Tournament, losing there to a Villanova team it had defeated during the regular season. Villanova lost to UCLA in the national championship game, but was later found to be using an ineligible player, Howard Porter.

The last NCAA Tournament victory for the Quakers came on March 17, 1994, at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. The No. 11 Red and Blue defeated the No. 6 Nebraska Cornhuskers, 90–80, in the first round. The Quakers fell in the second round to No. 3 Florida on March 19, 1994, as the Gators prevailed, 70–58.