Unless the NCAA Tournament has expanded to 316 teams while no one was looking, tonight will mark final game of the season for the Penn men’s basketball team. But that doesn’t mean the game will be boring. Here are five exciting Penn-Princeton games where nothing was on the line for the Quakers:
March 10, 2009: Princeton 59 Penn 56. Let’s take you all the way back to last year, when Princeton scored the final four points – all on free throws – to lead the Tigers past Penn at the Palestra. Penn missed two threes in the final 30 seconds, a fitting end to a rough season.
March 9, 2004: Princeton 76, Penn 70 (OT). Penn may have lost the game in OT, but the end of regulation was classic. After Eric Osmundson missed a 3-pointer with Penn down two, Adam Chubb grabbed a rebound and attempted a putback. It missed, but Tim Begley got a hand on it and tipped it in with six-tenths of a second left to tie the score and send it to OT. Penn had beaten Princeton earlier in the season but finished three games back of the Tigers in the standings.
March 3, 1998: Princeton 78, Penn 72 (OT). Penn had a chance to knock off Princeton, ranked eighth in the nation, in the season’s final game. Penn’s Michael Jordan had a shot to win it at the end of regulation, but missed a 3-pointer. “One bucket shy of euphoria,” The Daily Pennsylvanian wrote.
March 9, 1993: Penn 52, Princeton 51. Penn had already locked up an NCAA Tournament bid and was just going for a perfect Ivy season. Princeton center Rick Hielscher had a chance to win it at the buzzer, but his shot rimmed out and the Quakers had a 14-0 record in the Ancient Eight.
January 12, 1906: Penn 40, Princeton 5. What happened in this game? Who cares! For all we know, Woodrow Wilson (then the Princeton president) was the one in charge of getting the ball down from the peach basket during this contest. It was over 100 years ago, and Penn held Princeton to five points. That should be enough to make you smile.
