Guards heat up at Lafayette

EASTON, Pa. -- Despite the frigid temperatures outside, Penn's perimeter shooters needed only two minutes to catch fire.

Eric Osmundson set the tone with a trey and Ibby Jaaber followed suit as the Quakers rolled to an 85-63 victory over Lafayette last night at the Kirby Sports Center.

Jaaber provided the fireworks early on, draining his first three shots, all from downtown. And he kept up the energy as the game wore on, finishing with a career-high 24 points on 8-of-10 shooting.

This came as no surprise to Lafayette guard Jamaal Hilliard, who played with Jaaber at the Peddie School.

"I knew what to expect," Hilliard said of his former teammate.

Osmundson proved his offensive mettle, tallying 10 points in 10 minutes to open the game and finishing with 20.

Tim Begley also put up lofty numbers, but they were assists and not points as he made dish after dish to Osmundson and Jaaber. Begley finished with 13 helpers, good enough to tie a Penn record. Even though he tallied just three points on seven shots, his four steals -- of Penn's 14 for the game -- and only two turnovers were the grease on the Red and Blue offense, which was operating like a well-oiled machine.

"I have much more fun passing the ball," Begley said. "I'd take 13 assists any day."

And the senior captain was less than worried about not taking shots. "If Ibby and Oz get 20 [points] a game we're going to be OK."

Last night, they were.

It was crisp passes and aggressive moves to the basket for the full 40 minutes that allowed the Quakers (6-7) to put another win in the books over the Leopards (5-11), running the all-time series to 36-3 in favor of the Red and Blue.

"Penn just executed extremely well offensively," said Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon, who spent six years on the Palestra sidelines as an assistant coach. "They set the tempo right from the start."

The Quakers clung to slim leads throughout an awkward first half before closing the period with an eight-point edge on a leaner in the lane from Ryan Pettinella who finished with nine points.

Defensively, both teams seemed to be searching for their identities early on as shots were flying uncontested at both ends. Lafayette had an answer for every Penn three-pointer and finished the first frame shooting 54 percent from the field.

"They were getting some easy shots early on and that got our big guys fired up," Begley said.

But in the second half, the Leopards could not keep up with the Penn transition game. The Quakers scored 12 of the first 14 points in the second half to push the lead to 59-41, as Mark Zoller -- who was making his third start of the season, but was in foul trouble early -- dropped in his first three buckets of the night. Begley picked up a steal and lobbed an alley-oop to Jabber to cap the early run to put the game out of reach.

Such was the story of the second half, as Penn extended the lead to 20 with 12 minutes to go and never looked back.

Lafayette tried repeatedly to regain momentum, but the Quakers pressure kept them off balance. Freshman David Whitehurst made the most of his nine minutes on the court defensively blocking two shots and picking the pocket of Lafayette's Marcus Harley, who paced the Leopards with 14 points.

Sophomore transfer Lorenz Manthey made his first appearance on the court for the Quakers in the closing minutes. Manthey, a native of Hamburg, Germany, was ineligible to play last season.

As a team, Penn hit an even 50 percent from the floor including 12-of-25 from beyond the arc.

"When you make shots, you look like you know what you're doing," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We looked like that tonight."

Aggressiveness on the glass generated 41-26 rebounding edge for the Quakers. It didn't hurt the cause that Lafayette's 6-foot-6 forward Jamaal Douglas found himself limited to 15 minutes after collecting his fifth foul. Steven Danley and Pettinella held their own underneath despite being smaller than their Leopards counterparts.

The win was Dunphy's ninth over his former assistant coach, who has been no stranger to the Ivy League this season. The Leopards lost a nailbiter to Princeton, 40-38, in the first week of the season, and fell to Cornell, 75-72, before knocking off Columbia, 65-62.

"Today Penn looked better than any of those teams," O'Hanlon said.

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