Penn women’s basketball faces an unusual wait to learn if it will be in the Ivy League tournament

You might like to think that statistical oddities are things that happen to other people. On Saturday, the Penn women’s basketball team found itself nestled in the middle of one — in real time.

Following their 67-53 loss to Princeton at the Palestra and Brown’s 53-44 win at Yale, the Quakers (15-12, 6-8 Ivy League) and Brown finished the regular season tied for fourth place. Only four teams go to the Ivy League’s conference tournament, so it was time to start doing tiebreaker math.

The first, the head-to-head record, was even with a home win for each team. The second, each team’s record against the top teams, was also tied at 0-6. (That trio of Columbia, Princeton, and Harvard are all so good that the Ivy has a real shot at an unprecedented three NCAA Tournament berths this year.)

So it was on to the third, the NCAA’s NET rankings formula — and not as of Saturday’s tipoff, but as of the Sunday morning afterward.

Thus, the oddity. Penn took the floor 22 spots ahead of Brown in the rankings (162 to 184, if you’re wondering), which should be more than enough for the Quakers to survive. But it still wasn’t a certainty that they’d finished the job.

» READ MORE: Penn men’s and women’s hoops both drop regular-season finales to Princeton

There’s some history here, too. In 2023, regular season co-champion Columbia fell 10 spots in the NET rankings after the season’s final day despite a home win over Cornell, because the lowly Big Red took the game to overtime. The Lions lost the Ivy tournament’s No. 1 seed as a result.

It seems fair to say Penn shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Their sixth Ivy tournament berth in the event’s seven-year history (it didn’t happen in 2020 or 2021 because of the pandemic) will probably be confirmed Sunday morning — perhaps by the time these words are read in the Inquirer’s print edition.

But until then, there’s this oddity — and the wait that comes with it.

» READ MORE: Last second heroics from Laura Ziegler secure St. Joseph’s a spot in the A-10 women’s championship

When the subject came up after the game, Quakers coach Mike McLaughlin looked at the gathering of media members and jokingly asked if any were statistics majors. Though the Penn student newspaper has seen a few over the years, neither this reporter nor anyone else in the room passed the test.

“I know what we started [at], what we ended [at], knew who we played, knew they’re a good team,” McLaughlin said, referring to the Tigers being ranked No. 48. “I don’t know either, but I’m feeling pretty confident that we’re going to land where we should be.”

In fact, McLaughlin had made one miscalculation. A statistics major was in the room, sitting right next to him: senior shooting guard Stina Almqvist.

“I’ve been following the NET rankings all season, so I think it’s in our favor,” she said after her last game on the city’s most hallowed floor, where she had a team-best 18 points and 10 rebounds.

Penn honored the Sweden native in a pregame ceremony that included video messages from her parents, siblings, and grandparents back home, and a playing of the Swedish national anthem.

» READ MORE: On the men's side, Steve Donahue bears the burden of Penn’s longest losing streak against Princeton

“It’s kind of weird that it comes down to the ranking and some sort of algorithm, but I think we have a really good chance,” Almqvist said. “And obviously, until they tell me I can’t keep playing anymore, I will.”

Should Penn make the Ivy tournament, it would face regular-season champion Columbia in the semifinals. This year’s tournament is being held at Brown’s 2,800-seat campus gym in Providence, R.I., part of an eight-year rotation across all the schools. (The Palestra won’t host again until 2028 at the earliest, with Cornell and Dartmouth still to go.)

After that, though, Almqvist might get told her college career is over. Ivy League rules bar the conference’s teams from participating in postseason tournaments not run by the NCAA, which are the main tournament and the WBIT in women’s basketball. That takes the Women’s NIT, run by an outside promoter, off the board — and did last year too, when the event wanted Penn, but the Quakers had to say no.

(The rule extends to other sports, a league spokesperson noted. Men’s basketball has long had postseason events run by outside promoters, and women’s volleyball now does too.)

“We have talked about it, and we think it’s unfair,” McLaughlin said. “I think if you’re qualified to play at a next-level tournament, I think your team should be able to play, just for that reason. These kids want to play, and this team did enough to be in the postseason, and I’d love for them to play as much as they can.”

It’s not up to him, just like all the NIL and financial aid conversations that arise these days. The league makes the rules, and McLaughlin has to follow them. At least right now he has something else to think about.

“I’m confident that we’re not done,” McLaughlin said, and he’ll probably be proved right.

But for the moment, it’s all he can say.

» READ MORE: Fran Dunphy gets a Philly send-off as La Salle knocks off St. Joe’s: ‘Nobody’s been luckier than me’