Pennsylvania Quakers: 24-8, 12-2 in the Ivy League
Head coach: Steve Donahue (3rd season)
Players to watch: A.J. Brodeur (13.1 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 54.6 FG%); Ryan Betley (14.5 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 38.9 3PT%); Darnell Foreman (10.7 PPG, 3.6 APG)
Season recap: It wasn't long ago that Quaker head coach Steve Donahue was part of the ACC, leading Boston College for four subpar seasons as the Eagles tallied just 24 total conference victories under Donahue. After a year off, the former Cornell head coach returned to the Ivy League and has revived Pennsylvania, which capped its best season in more than a decade with a 68-65 win against Harvard to earn the conference's automatic bid.
The Quakers nearly knocked off crosstown rival La Salle on the season's opening week, but after a double-overtime defeat, Penn ripped off 12 victories in its first 17 games—one of the Quakers' five losses was a 28-point defeat at Villanova in late November. But outside of another Big Five loss against Temple in late January, Penn has lost just twice since the start of the calendar year, with both coming away from Philadelphia. The Quakers have also shown they can win tight games, with 10 of their Ivy League victories—including the title game—decided by single digits.
Although Penn is no offensive juggernaut, it is fundamental on the defensive end, ranking 73rd in the nation per KenPom.com's adjusted defensive efficiency metric, and the Quakers hold opponents to just 29.2 percent beyond the arc, good for second-best among Division I teams. Despite being led offensively by a pair of sophomores in A.J. Brodeur and Ryan Betley, Penn also has experience with senior Darnell Foreman at the point.
How they make a run: It's been more than two decades since the Quakers have won an NCAA tournament game, but in a low-scoring battle, Penn ends that streak and pulls the first-ever upset by a No. 16 seed against top-seeded Kansas.
How they falter: The Quakers simply don't have enough offense to keep up with the big boys, and with no one taller than 6-foot-8 on the inside, Penn is dominated in the post en route to an early exit.
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Twitter: @mpgladstone13
A junior from just outside Philadelphia, Mitchell is probably reminding you how the Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and that the Phillies are definitely on the rebound. Outside of The Chronicle, he majors in Economics, minors in Statistics and is working toward the PJMS certificate, in addition to playing trombone in the Duke University Marching Band. And if you're getting him a sandwich with beef and cheese outside the state of Pennsylvania, you best not call it a "Philly cheesesteak."