AT COURTSIDE: Second-half defense kept Penn in the game

Penn held Kerry Kittles to five points, his lowest scoring total since he was a freshman. The Quakers' defense stepped up to hold Eric Eberz to five second-half points, Jason Lawson to three. Kittles didn't score a single point in the final stanza. Still, Villanova somehow found a way to win the game. That's the mark of a good team and part of the reason why the Wildcats are among the top 10 teams in the country. But, there is no reason why Penn should not feel good about the way it played. If it's going to take the heroics of Roscoe Harris, Jonathan Haynes and Chuck Kornegay to beat you, then so be it. "It's unbelievable that we were able to win with Kerry scoring only five points," Lappas said. "That says something about our bench. They did a great job on him defensively. He's only human." Villanova could not have played a better first half than it did. When Penn travelled to UMass Jan. 14, the Minutemen got an early lead and pulled away from the Quakers. Last night, Penn handled the pressure of playing in a tough road environment and refused to let the game get out of reach. If the Quakers had only a few seconds more to complete their comeback attempt, there is no telling what might have happened. Without the services of Kittles, Penn made the Wildcats rely on their second and third options. For the first half, Villanova remained successful on the offensive end. Eberz poured in 20 while Lawson carved through the lane for 17. It looked as if each of these two players were on their way to career nights. "They were pushing out on us," Eberz said. "Jerome was all over Kerry. He set some screens that allowed me to get open. All I had to do was shoot the ball." But in the second half, Eberz was no longer to get any good lucks at the basket. Ira Bowman denied the passing lanes, and when Eberz did catch the ball there was a man up in his face. In the blocks, Lawson all of a sudden found it difficult to get points as well. For all intents and purposes, Penn succeeded in shutting down all three of Villanova's top offensive players for the final 20 minutes. "It would have been difficult for them to have as good a second half as the first half," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We made some effective changes though. We doubled down on Lawson and pressed up on Eberz. I only wish we had made the adjustments earlier." On most nights that would have been good for a victory. Last night, it wasn't. Harris hit two key three-pointers late in the second half to keep the Wildcats ahead. Then Haynes, in his first game back from a stress fracture to his foot suffered Jan. 28, also drained a three-pointer. Perhaps the most devastating of all the field goals came off the hands of Chuck Kornegay, who put back a Kittles miss for Villanova's final field goal. "It was good to come back in a game like this," Haynes said. "Penn's a good team. They barely lost to Florida, an eventual Final Four team, in the tournament last year. I knew it was going to be tough." The Wildcats were forced to rely on some unsung role players in order to come away with the victory. That is a luxury this year's Quakers do not have. Penn is all but locked into a seven-man rotation with the five senior starters plus Bowman and Tim Krug. While sophomore Nat Graham probably made his biggest contribution as a Quaker last night, he cannot be expected to provide nearly the spark Harris and Haynes did. Still, more than a few Quakers sparked Penn on the defensive end last night. It effectively shut out the three best scorers for the No. 9 team in the country. The Quakers took away the known and took their chances with the unknown. Unfortunately for Penn, this time around the unknown responded to the challenge. "We played a terrific team at their facility and battled them to the wire," Dunphy said. "You can learn a lot from a close game like that. I'm really proud of our players."