AT COURTSIDE: Poor shooting critical in loss

PRINCETON, N.J. -- You could hear it in almost everything the Penn women's basketball team said after its 68-55 loss at Princeton. "We just got outplayed in virtually every element," Penn coach Julie Soriero said. "They deserved to win." But the statistics didn't really bear that assessment out. The Quakers were only outrebounded 37-36. Penn turned the ball over just twice more than Princeton, 15-13. The Tigers took 61 shots, the Quakers 55. There was however, one statistic that jumped off the stat sheet as if it were written in red ink: 34.5 percent. That was Penn's shooting percentage, and if you removed senior center Katarina Poulsen's 10 of 20 night, it fell to 20 percent, just nine of 45. Penn senior forward Julie Gabriel, coming off a number of great efforts, shot an unimpressive 1 for 4. And the Quaker guard trio had an even tougher night. Shelly Bowers: 2 for 7. Katina Banks: 1 of 8, including zero from behind the three-point arc. And freshman Erica McCauley shot 1 of 5 from the floor. This was a night where, from outside, the Quakers couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. What could explain this atrocity? Perhaps it is that while Penn went just two deep on the bench, Princeton used nine players. Princeton coach Joan Kowalik cited this as one reason for the Tigers' persistent defensive pressure. "We had a lot of different people playing," she said. "I think the fact that we had probably more depth on our team so we had fresher legs helped." Penn, though, refused to accept this excuse. "Fatigue is not a factor with us," Poulsen said. "We're used to playing with this many people. We weren't working hard enough to get open. We just have to get the job done." Although Penn refused to admit it, fatigue must've played a part in the poor Quaker shooting from the outside. It was not just the fact that Penn did not use it's bench as often as Princeton did, but the Tigers' offensive style also contributed to wearing down the Quakers. Penn's defensive pressure would consistently hold off the Princeton offensive attack until the shot clock began to dwindle into single digits. It was then, in the waning moments before the shot clock would sound, that the Tigers would find a way to break through the Quaker defense for an easy basket. But even considering the amount of energy the Quakers were forced to exert of the defensive end of the floor, Penn still refused to accept fatigue as the cause for the Quakers' poor shooting from the outside. "Fatigue didn't seem as much a factor as some of the bad decisions we made," Soriero said. And beyond the poor play selection, the Quakers had problems from the outside because of Princeton's aggressive defensive style because the Tiger guards extended their zone out farther than most teams do. What all of these factors led to was clear by the time the game was over: 34.5 percent from the field won't win many games, especially in the Ivies.