PHILADELPHIA — Princeton’s all-time series lead over Penn lasted for one game in the long and storied rivalry. It’s all-square again after the Quakers ended a 14-game losing streak by holding off the Tigers, 61-60, on Saturday afternoon at the Palestra. Penn (11-10, 4-4 Ivy League) evened a se ries that began in 1902-03 at 127 apiece after Princeton (8-15, 4-4) grabbed the lead for the first time with a victory in the meeting on Jan. 5. “We have a few generations of guys who hadn’t lost here or at home,” Tigers coach Mitch Henderson said. “It felt a lot like what it was like when I played.” That meant a tightly-contested, physical battle that would almost certainly come down to the final possession. It was exactly that after TJ Power scored the three biggest of his game-high 18 points on a corner 3-pointer with 1:17 to go after Princeton finally whittled a 12-point second-half deficit down to one. Dalen Davis answered with a 3-ball of his own on the Tigers’ next trip, and after Princeton got a stop, Davis had one last chance, but a sloppy possession ended with him leaving a mid-ranger short. Henderson opted not to use his final timeout and instead let Davis work out of trouble. The junior guard maneuvered into the paint, head faked, but couldn’t get Penn’s AJ Levine to bite. “I felt great about having the ball in Dalen’s hands,” Henderson said. “He just made a 3 to put us in that spot. It didn’t go down, but we gave ourselves a chance to win.” Levine’s terrific defense on that last possession made it a difficult shot. “After he shot it all that matters is I did everything I could in that moment. I put my entire effort out there all game,” said Levine, a sophomore who finished with 13 points. ” … Once it missed, it was the biggest relief ever. We finally beat them after playing them for the fourth time. I was just really excited that it missed.” Penn coach Fran McCaffery, a player here in the early 80s, downplayed snapping the losing streak. “I don’t concern myself with what happened in 2018,” McCaffery said in reference to being asked about the last time the Quakers were victorious over the Tigers. “This team, we’re going to prepare them to win the next game on the schedule and the next game happened to be Princeton.” Jacob Huggins led the Tigers with 14 points and led a spirited second-half effort in which the visitors had to work through foul trouble for Davis — he got his fourth with 11:30 to go — and a lower-body injury to Jack Stanton that left him sidelined after an ineffective first half. Malik Abdullahi finished with 12 points and Davis and Jackson Hicke had 10 each for Princeton. Abdullahi made two baskets in the final three minutes to first pull the Tigers within one possession for the first time since the 7:21 mark of the first half and then to cut the deficit to one. The Tigers have a back-to-back next weekend against Cornell and Columbia at Jadwin Gymnasium. In the log jammed middle of the Ivy League — three teams are 4-4 — those two contests are going to be vital. “We’re right in the mix,” Henderson said. “We got to stay positive. We’ve had some ups and downs with injuries and (it) looks like we are in the same spot again now. We got to just keep finding guys to fill in.” ...read more read less