AT COURTSIDE: Win was no moral vitory

The scoreboard read 88-71. The Penn band played, "All Right Now." A 17-point victory to improve the Penn men's basketball team's record to 10-2. Yet as students left the Palestra last evening, as the Quakers marched into the locker room, a sense of dissatisfaction was evident. For Penn, it was a disappointing victory. The Penn-Lafayette game figured to be an easy win for the Quakers. It was to be a game like last years', when the Quakers won 89-65, when Penn took such a commanding lead it was able to give some of its younger players ample time on the court. In short, it was supposed to be a blowout. Towards the beginning of the contest, it appeared as though it would be another Quaker thrashing. With 7:02 left in the first half, and holding a 15-point lead, Penn sophomore guard Donald Moxley came off the bench to take junior Matt Maloney's place. Freshman center Nat Graham also entered the game with 2:36 remaining in the first half when Penn held a 16-point lead. The Quakers ended the half up by 16 points. Yet as Penn returned for the second half, it seemed as though it either left some of its emotion in the locker room or that the Leopards came out with some new spirit. Several times in the second half, Lafayette was able to cut the lead to well within Penn's comfort zone. "We've been down a lot this year," Lafayette coach John Leone said. "We were down at Iona, we were down at Florida State and we were down at Bucknell. Our kids don't give up. I would like to think we were executing our offense a little bit better and not doing so much one-on-one. But it could be that they relaxed a little." Defensively in the second half, it may have seemed like the Quakers had taken a short nap, as Lafayette scored 47 second-half points to Penn's 48. Yet statistically, it seems more as though the Leopards came on strong as opposed to to the Quakers' backing off. After all, Lafayette was only allowed six more field goals attempts, connecting on 46 percent of its shots as opposed to only 35 percent in the first half. Yet, in the three-point area, the Leopards, while attempting one less trey, increased their accuracy from 9 percent to 60 percent. Free throw percentage also improved for Lafayette, going from 43 percent to 50 percent. While such improvements can be attributed to the Quakers' lack of enthusiasm, they can also be attributed to Lafayette's strong desire to post what would be only its third victory over the Quakers in 28 games. "Lafayette -- they played hard," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "They wanted to win. They were without their leading scorer. So I'm sure the other guys on the team wanted to pick it up. "[Lafayette sophomore guard Craig] Kowadla is a tough little player," Dunphy added. "He made some big shots and they had some pretty good inside play I thought a number of times that we didn't pay attention to. So they were coming to play. They weren't going to make anything easier on us. But again, I think we worry about us more then we worry about the opposition, and there were a lot of things we could have done." And exactly what could the Quakers have done? While their field-goal percentage (35.9 to 53.1) and trey percentage (23.5 to 27.6) went up in the second half, their shooting attempts went down. Also, Penn's free-throw accuracy dropped from 80 percent to 59 percent. So, maybe the Quakers could have shot more, maybe they could have been less sloppy and maybe they could have kept up their defense. "I thought they scored an awful lot of points in the second half," Dunphy said. "There were some lapses of defense by us, but I thought we had a lot of good shots the second half." Perhaps Penn is being too hard on itself. But, like any competitive group, it strives for perfection and every game is to be seen as a challenge. One Quaker who was extremely upset with his performance was senior Barry Pierce, even though he led Penn with 20 points on the night. "I wanted to play well this game," Pierce said . "I take full responsibility. I had maybe 30 to 40 wide-open jump shots and I made like none. It is kind of sad. I don't have too many opportunities to play well at the Palestra. I just came out a little sluggish. It just seemed like we kept them in the game. "Every game has equal weight. This was a big game for us. I really can't think of any excuses for the way I played." And while Penn seemed disappointed with its win over the Leopards, it is only natural that a team that has in the recent past received as many as 37 votes in the AP Top-25 Poll, and has come so far, would want to not only maintain the respect it has gained nationwide, but also boost that respect to a higher level. "I think we have commanded respect from every team that comes here to play," Pierce said. "That is why teams play us so hard. So it's not surprising that they were active for 40 minutes."