PHILADELPHIA CREAM – The University of Pennsylvania women’s basketball team continues on the road Wednesday night, heading to Columbia for a rescheduled Ivy League contest in the Big Apple.

GAME 17 – PENN (7-9, 2-2 Ivy) at COLUMBIA (13-3, 4-0 Ivy)
Wednesday, January 26, 2022 | 6 p.m.
Levien Gymnasium | New York, NY

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Penn-Columbia Series

Wednesday’s game will mark the 70th time the two programs have met with Penn leading the all-time series, 51-18. The Quakers enter the game with an 18-game winning streak down the line dating back to the 2011-12 season. The head coach Mike McLaughlin maintains a 19-3 record against Columbia, while Penn also has a 20-14 tally at Levien Gymnasium.

The last time we met

The last meeting was on March 7, 2020, the last Ivy League weekend before the pandemic hit. Playing on Lions home ground, the Quakers snuffed out Columbia’s offense en route to a 51–36 victory, the lowest point total Penn had held the Lions at Levien Gymnasium in program history. Scoring game of seven different Quakers led by Kayla Padille with 12 tips. Defensively, Penn grabbed 50 rebounds, including a 19-rebound performance from Eleah Parker and 10 per Kennedy Suttle. The Quakers bolstered a program record by 11 blocks, seven of which came from Parker, missing the program record by just one game by just two set in 2014 by Sydney Stipanovich.

About Colombia

The Lions are on the prowl this season, sporting a 13-3 overall record and an unblemished 4-0 total in the Ivy League. They opened the season with five straight wins before losing at home to Stony Brook, 91-82, the only familiar non-conference opponent on the Lions schedule to the Quakers. Columbia beat Yale (65-55), Harvard (72-64), Cornell (57-46) and Brown (60-52) in their last four-game streak. Abbey Hsu leads the Lions this season, averaging 16.6 points per game, while Kaitlyn Davis is close behind with 13.3. Defensively, Davis paces the team with 9.2 rebounds per game and 24 total blocks.

Penn’s Last Outing

The Quakers are coming off the road at Yale on Saturday 63-53. Penn was led by a double-double performance by second Jordan Obi with 18 points and 12 rebounds, while Padilla also dropped 18 points. The Quakers forced Yale to 22 turnovers, the fourth time in the last five games their opponents have turned the ball over 20 times.

defensive strength

Penn currently ranks 26th in the nation in field goal percentage defense, holding opponents to a 35.3 shooting percentage this season. Only Princeton sits ahead of the Quakers in the category, sporting a 35.2. Much of that success comes from blocks, leading the Ivy League in blocked shots (72) and blocked shots per game (4.5). Obi was a key cog in that area, ranking fourth in the conference in those two categories with 24 blocks at 1.5 per game.

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