NEW HAVEN, Conn.–Good evening from the John J. Lee Ampitheater on Yale’s campus, where Penn is almost set to tip off against the Bulldogs. It will be a battle of middle-of-the-road Ivy teams tonight, and we’ll see if the Quakers will be able to shake their Lee Ampitheater woes of the past few years.

Final: Penn 70, Yale 63

The curse ends, and the Quakers pull out a victory at Lee Ampitheater. Yale made it too close for comfort, but Miller will take the victory. So long from New Haven, and see you tomorrow, live from Providence, R.I. where Penn will take on Brown.

1.5, 2nd Half: Penn 68 Yale 63

Eggleston hits both FTs, and Caleb Holmes responds with a ridiculous bank three. A gratuitous foul on Eggleston is just prolonging this one.

9.7, 2nd Half: Penn 66 Yale 60

Grandieri drains the first, and misses the second, but it should sew it up. Egee rejects Braswell out of bounds on the other end. Eggleston comes up with a rebound after a missed jumper, and that should just about do it.
24.5, 2nd Half: Penn 65 Yale 60

Flato nearly drains another tough trey, but Grandieri comes up with the board as usual, and is hacked again. He will shoot two, but first Yale calls a timeout.

39.8, 2nd Half: Penn 65 Yale 60

Pinick can’t take advantage of a huge mismatch against Egee, as he misses a shot in the post. Grandieri will head to the line, and miss them both.
56.4, 2nd Half: Penn 65 Yale 60

Flato responds with a clutch jumper, and sends Gaines to the line a few ticks later after a reach-in. Apparently a good call, as Gaines hits just one.

1:30, 2nd Half: Penn 64 Yale 58

Brain fart by Morin. He starts backing down in the post but doesn’t realize the shot clock is about to expire. Penn ball, and Bernardini drives the lane for a bank shot.
1:57, 2nd Half: Penn 62 Yale 58

The freshman hits both foul shots, pushing the margin to four. Morin finds himself backing down Reilly at the three-point line, causing Yale coach James Jones to call a timeout.

2:23, 2nd Half: Penn 60 Yale 58

Holmes hits them both, and the Bulldogs are fully back in the game. That Lee echo is getting louder in here as Eggleson is sent to the line again to shoot two.

2:42, 2nd Half: Penn 60 Yale 56

Miller and his staff are furious after a bad call by the refs. Gaines is called for continuation after picking up his own loose ball, but he had to have been either fouled or had the ball tipped. Now Yale bangs it inside with Holmes, but he’s hacked by Bernardini.

3:35, 2nd Half: Penn 60 Yale 56

Eggleston can’t get the call on the next possession, and he sends the sharpshooting Flato to the line. But the guard only hits one.
3:43, 2nd Half: Penn 60 Yale 55

Clutch defense by Eggleston as he takes the charge from a driving Caleb Holmes to quiet the crowd, but the silence doesn’t last long. Votel and Bernardini can’t connect on the ensuing inbounds.

3:57, 2nd Half: Penn 60 Yale 55

A pair of Flato free throws after a foul on Gaines will cut the lead to five, and a shot-clock violation is called ont he Quakers after a Grandieri bank attempt misses the rim. The Lee Ampitheater is starting to get loud.

5:08, 2nd Half: Penn 60 Yale 53

After Votel couldn’t get the ball inbounds, Miller draws up a nice touchdown pass play, but Reilly can’t finish. Pinick is sent to the line, hitting one.

Reilly came out for Eggleston while some sort of discrepancy between referees and coaches went on during a long break between free throws. Apparently they were trying to figure out who the foul was on. Let’s get it together, zebras.
5:39, 2nd Half: Penn 58 Yale 52

Reilly responds with a turn-around jumper, but a couple of free throws by Morin brings the margin to eight again. On the Penn end of the floor, Grandieri is hacked, and makes one of two from the line.

Morin will go to the line for the second straight possession, converting on an and-1 to bring the Bulldogs even closer.

6:45, 2nd Half: Penn 55 Yale 47

Eggleston hit them both, but was abused by Morin on the other end. Morin hit two of two after a Grandieri foul.

7:16, 2nd Half: Penn 53 Yale 45

Boy does Flato love that step-back three. He just swished one from the corner to make this a single-digit game. Eggleston is going to the line to shoot two to try to bring the margin back to 10 for the Quakers. Reilly and Gaines are also back in.

8:30, 2nd Half: Penn 53 Yale42

After Votel and Gibson match baskets, Grandieri misses the front end of a one-and-one and Yale’s Caleb Holmes is fouled on the floor.The Bulldogs might be clawing their way back into this one.

10:10, 2nd Half: Penn 51 Yale 40

A Jordan Gibson bucket just cut Penn’s margin. But before that, another three from Nick Holmes from the exact same spot came after Gaines hit one of two free throws. He’s been great running the offense tonight, but another missed jumper from the freshman point guard is showing that he needs to take a few more in practice.
11:24, 2nd Half: Penn 50 Yale 35

Gaines will go to the line after a questionable call on Yale; a Bulldogs defender (I didn’t catch who) seemed to get all ball after the Penn guard pulled up in the lane. Nick Holmes had hit a huge three from way downtown on the other end, but Gaines will have a chance to extend the margin for Penn.

Meanwhile, the Yale cheerleaders continue a mediocre night, as their pyramid crumbles once again.

12:33, 2nd Half: Penn 46 Yale 30

An unusual Reilly-Votel frontcourt was on the floor for Penn before Eggleston returned to the game, and they seemed to be doing a good job of boxing out and playing defense. This rotation has been evolving and developing all season, as two earlier favorites of Miller, Aron Cohen and Cam Lewis, have yet to see a minute of action tonight.

14:39, 2nd Half: Penn 46 Yale 29
Some more Grandierian efficiency, as he hits his fourth trifecta in four attempts. When are the Bulldogs going to start stepping out on that?

15:19, 2nd Half: Penn 43 Yale 27

There’s that efficient passing again. Grandieri passed up a three to feed Votel for a lefty lay-up. Before that, though, Flato drained a fall-away trey, but missed two on the next two possessions. A scrum on Penn’s end that ended up with Votel and Eggleston on the floor turned into a 5-on-3 break for Yale, but it couldn’t convert. Gaines is about to come in after a media timeout here.
18:14, 2nd Half: Penn 39 Yale 24
Penn looks a little bit out of sorts here to start the half. Schreiber and Grandieri each turned the ball over on bad passes, and Votel will return to the game to replace the big Swede. Pinick will open the second-half scoring with a free throw, followed up by a Flato lay-in.
Halftime Thoughts:

The Quakers are really hitting their jump shots right now, which has really been the difference, and what’s more, you can tell they’re really trying to push the ball any chance they can get. Yale, on the other hand, is trying to pound it inside on most possessions, but the Bulldogs haven’t had too much success. Give Schreiber and Votel some credit for knocking people around down there and staying out of foul trouble.
Bernardini leads the way for Penn with 12 points, while Grandieri and Eggleston aren’t far behind with nine and eight, respectively. But try this stat on for size: On 18 field goals, the Red and Blue have 16 assists. They really are moving the ball well, and it has shown up on the stat sheet, especially for Gaines and Grandieri, who have 5 and 4 assists, respectively.

Morin and Holmes are practically the Bulldogs’ only scorers–they each have nine.
0:00, 1st Half: Penn 39, Yale 21

Gaines takes his sweet time at the end of the half, and his short jumper doesn’t count. But Bernardini hit a jumper with a minute to go, so Penn will go into half time with an 18-point lead. And the sparsely-populated Lee Ampitheater isn’t posing too much of a problem for Penn, apparently.
1:09, 1st Half: Penn 37, Yale 21

A nifty little scoop-under is finished by Eggleston as he works around a Bernardini back screen, butCaleb Holmes responds on the other end with a pair of free throws.

After that, Gaines finishes a break-away layup a few seconds after throwing up an ugly shot in transition that caught nothing but backboard. Then, Bernardini drains another two-pointer.
5:12, 1st Half: Penn 29, Yale 17

I guess I jinxed them. Votel, Bernardini and Schreiber all missed jumpers over the past few possessions, and Miller is going to go with a line shift: Grandieri and Eggleston will check back in after a Morin free throw for the Bulldogs.

7:44, 1st Half: Penn 29, Yale 14

Salient question: Can the Quakers miss? Bernardini just hit a nice jumper off the dribble. Meanwhile, Penn isn’t giving up much on defense, and is running the transition offense well, to boot (Votel put in another bucket on a fast break a minute ago).

8:57, 1st Half: Penn 25, Yale 14

Wow, Grandieri has hit two more threes since we last checked in. As usual, he’s moving really well around screens and putting himself in position for Gaines to find him open. Add to that a top-of-the-key three from Votel (2007 NCAA Tournament, anyone?) and Penn has really taken control.

11:48, 1st Half: Penn 17, Yale 12

Pinick can’t throw down a driving dunk, and on the other end Gaines puts up an ugly jumper in the lane. On the other end, Yale keeps banging away down low, going to Morin now that 6-11 Matt Kyle is out of the game. Grandieri hit a trey to push the Penn advantage to five.

Here’s a pleasant surprise: Brennan Votel, who hasn’t seen many minutes this season, will make a first-half appearance. Let’s see if he can quell the Bulldogs’ big men.

13:23, 1st Half: Penn 14, Yale 10

With Justin Reilly and Harrison Gaines making their first appearances, Penn has taken the lead with a couple of trifectas from Tyler Bernardini; one on a nice in-bounds play, and the other with a hand in his face. An all-too-easy Eggleston bucket in transition forces Yale to call a timeout.

16:00, 1st Half: Penn 6, Yale 10

Penn can’t seem to get in the flow of its offense right now; they all seem to be getting in each other’s way. But after a nice take by Schreiber to the hoop, Egee pulls a classic pick-up move and throws it off of a defender and out of bounds. Eggleston hit a couple of layups, and Pinick nailed a three. Holmes and Kyle followed that up with buckets.

17:40, 1st Half: Penn 2, Yale 3

Andreas Schreiber opens the scoring with a nice turn-around jumper with the shot clock winding down, but Yale did some clock-mliking of its own on the other end, with big man Ross Morin stepping out to drain a three. Meanwhile, Kevin Egee launches an ill-advised three on the other end.

The starting lineups tonight:

Penn: G Tyler Bernardini, C Andreas Schreiber, G Kevin Egee, G Brian Grandieri, F Jack Eggleston

Yale: F Ross Morin, F Travis Pinick, C Matt Kyle, G Eric Flato, G Caleb Holmes

Tags: Game Updates

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