Penn MBB Season Preview: Quakers’ Ivy League Title Defense Begins

Penn Men’s Basketball won the Ivy League and made their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018 last season. The catalyst to that run, senior forward TJ Power (6-foot-9), is back for another season with the Quakers. 

A former top 30 recruit with a five-star billing, Power wasn’t able to live up to his reputation through false starts at Duke and Virginia. Penn head coach Fran McCaffery helped him hit reset, and Power led the Quakers with 16.4 points and 7.6 rebounds per game last season. He made the most three-pointers and finished second in assists and steals, a testament to the all-around ability that earned him unanimous All-Ivy League honors. 

Almost all of Power’s supporting cast is also back in University City: the Quakers brought back seven of their top nine players in minutes played, including starting point guard AJ Levine (6-foot-0), who led the team in assists and steals, wing Michael Zanoni (6-foot-5), their third-leading scorer and second-best three-point shooter, and senior forward Augustus Gerhart (6-foot-9), who put up 5.5 points and 4.7 rebounds per game.

Sophomore center/forward Dalton Scantlebury (6-foot-9) led the team in blocks and put up 5.9 points and 3.9 rebounds per game, anchoring Penn down low and providing an important substitute for Gerhart; sophomore guard Jay Jones (6-foot-4) and junior forward Lucas Lueth (6-foot-7) played 13.9 and 16.1 minutes per game last season, respectively, and are the other returning Quakers who saw major playing time.

Doing Things the Right Way

Junior guard Sir Mohammed, a transfer from Notre Dame who once ranked as a top 60 recruit, is Penn’s biggest acquisition of the offseason. The son of an 18-year NBA veteran, Mohammed averaged 5.7 points and 2.6 rebounds per game last season, starting just five of 31 games played. After his success in getting Power back on track, McCaffery’s potential to push the right buttons with Mohammed could be the catalyst to an Ivy League repeat.

Sophomore Dorian Glogovac (6-foot-6) is the Quakers’ other transfer. After putting up 23.6 points per game at D-III Cal Tech, he’ll need to prove he can adjust to Ivy League play, but his scoring flair makes him an intriguing pickup regardless. 

From there, McCaffery replaced graduations the old fashioned way, bringing in a six-player freshman class with guards Chase Geremia (6-foot-2), Isaiah Carroll (6-foot-6), Johnny Keenan (6-foot-0) and Ethan Lin (6-foot-5); the Quakers’ roster page praises each of them for their leadership roles in high school, and Penn’s continuity should help them settle in. Finley Billy (6-foot-8) is the lone forward recruit, while Philadelphia area product and Plymouth-Whitemarsh grad Michael Pereira, a 6-foot-10 center, bears watching as he learns from Gerhart and Scantlebury.

Wings Ryan Altman (6-foot-6) and Payton Kamin (6-foot-7) could also see some playing time as they recover from injury-altered seasons, as could wing Niklas Polonowski (6-foot-6, six minutes per game last season) and forward William Kruse (6-foot-11, 3.7 MPG).