Penn edges Harvard for Ivy title, berth in the NCAA tournament

PHILADELPHIA » Look who’s back in the NCAA Tournament.

Darnell Foreman scored 19 points, AJ Brodeur added 16 and 10 rebounds and Penn punched a ticket to the Big Dance for the first time since 2007 with a 68-65 win over Harvard in the Ivy League Tournament championship game at the Palestra on Sunday afternoon.

Foreman scored all 19 of his points in the first half, helping the second-seeded Quakers (24-8) surge in front with a 24-0 run sandwiched around the halftime break.

Still, the Crimson (18-13), the top seed playing a road game, rallied despite an injury that sidelined Ivy Player of the Year in the second half.

But Penn senior Caleb Wood connected on two straight 3-pointers, the second a fourpoint play to give the Quakers a 63-60 lead with 3:42 left. Ryan Betley (17 points) followed with a three-point play before Harvard’s Christian Juzang hit a 3 to cut the deficit to three in the final minute.

Justin Bassey knocked down a pair of free throws with 14.3 seconds left to slice the lead to 66-65 and after Betley made a pair of free throws, the Crimson missed on two attempts to tied the game in the final seconds.

“I didn’t think it was possible for us to get to the NCAA Tournament until the horn went off,” said Quakers coach Steve Donahue, who has now led a pair of Ivy League schools to the NCAA Tournament. “In a building I grew up in, and watching the kids storm the floor for our guys, (it was) magical. Unexpected, too.”