Great Games in Penn History: March 5-6, 1982

NEW YORK -- You've just beaten the Big Red of Cornell in a basketball game with the excitement of a wet lint exhibit. You're sitting on a bus waiting to drive five hours into the night toward New Jersey. What could you possibly do for fun? If you're the Penn Quakers Friday night you whoop it up over news that Columbia had just lost to Princeton, and for the fourth time in five years under Bob Weinhauer you'll go to the NCAA Tournament as the Ivy League champions. It wasn't backing in by any stretch. But after playing cat and mouse with Cornell to the tune of 68-50, the Red and Blue won a championship on a Greyhound. It was the end of a long, long road to the top. "Freshman year was a sweet championship," Paul Little (16 points, 14 rebounds on the weekend) said, "because it was my first. But this one is fantastic since we hung together through all the tough times." "This is the team I've had which has overcome the most adversity," Weinhauer said. "We're confident now. We've gelled together and started to do some good things, especially on defense. The losing streak is way behind us now." Instead, there is a 14-game winning streak, the third-longest in the nation, and a date with St. John's Friday night at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. Numbers 13 and 14 were far different encounters though. Friday the Quakers went up to Ithaca expressly concerned with avoiding the "looking past" syndrome. Six minutes into the contest the Quakers were up 12-8. Eight minutes later it was 21-8. Four minutes later it was 31-9. That was with only 1 minute, 11 seconds left in the first half. Let's break this down statistically. One point, no field goals in over eight minutes. Nine points in 19 minutes. Twenty four-percent shooting from the field with 12 turnovers. In essence, Penn played outstanding defense in tallying a 36-12 halftime lead. That spells no letdown. "I thought our kids did a great job setting the tempo early," Weinhauer said. "We did that somewhat by playing great defense. But in the second half we were just begging the clock to go faster." It couldn't have gone any slower. The Big Red got no closer than 15. The only bit of excitement came when Fran McCaffery lost his temper, taking a swing at Cornell's Ron Tryon. "He (Tryon) tripped me," McCaffery (4 assists, 4 steals on the weekend) explained. "Then the ref called me for a walk and he (Tryon) taps me on the back. Well, I wanted to let him know that where we come from we don't play that style." Columbia doesn't play that style either. Saturday night's game had the potential to be a championship showdown. Princeton foiled that the night before. But the intensity level in Levien Gym was still electric. The 'Horrible Hankies" were out en masse, making the south stands a sea of sky blue. Penn-Columbia games are always highly emotional, physical contests. This one was even more so. The Lions were out to prove a point. Sure, they had lost their shot at the title, but a victory over Penn would show that they were for real. The Quakers knew this going in and were prepared for it. "There were two things that stood in our minds about [Columbia]," David Lardner, the game's high scorer with nine points, said. "First was keeping the streak going. The other was something we had read in the New York papers. Other teams in the league were saying they weren't worried about playing us any more. We had to change that opinion." The Quakers did. Barely. The 45-43 victory wasn't decided until Richie Gordon's 25-foot desperation shot hit the rim for the third time and fell out of the cylinder to the sound of the final buzzer. Thus the Red and Blue had completed a six-point comeback and clung on to a dwindling six-point lead to preserve the streak. The big difference in this game was what happened at the foul line (mostly because Penn and Columbia shot just 37 and 39 percent respectively from the field). In the first half, the Lions got the bonus with over 13 minutes remaining. That sent them to the line 15 times, where they picked up half of their 24 first-half points. The second half was the complete antithesis. The Lions went 5 of 9 from the line while the Quakers got eight of their last 12 points there on clutch performances by Karl Racine (6 of 7 free throws on the weekend) and Anthony Arnolie (9 of 13 from the line). Arnolie, though, nearly went from hero to goat. He hit both ends of a one-and-one in the last minute to preserve the slim Quakers lead. But he missed the front end of a pair when only five ticks showed on the clock. That gave Gordon his chance to throw the game into overtime. "You don't feel any pressure on the line," Arnolie said. "I've been there before in high school and college. You do it so many times that if you're good you'll make them." The big break for the Quakers came with just over a minute left. Arnolie was taking the ball inbounds after a Columbia basket. He threw to Racine, who was also behind the baseline, a legal maneuver. But Columbia's Brad Brown reached across the plane of the baseline to attempt a deflection -- not a legal maneuver. In fact, it was a technical, giving Penn a free throw and the ball back after a two-minute hiatus at midcourt with officials and both coaching staffs. "Columbia was tough all the way to the end," Lardner said. "Other teams will shoot jumpers quickly when they're down, but Columbia just moves to the hole for five-footers. They can come back quickly." Quickly, but not far enough. And now comes the tournament. This is where the excitement and the fun really begin. The Quakers have completed the comeback from last place in the Ivies at 0-2 to a championship at 12-2 with a three-game cushion. It's been a season of streaks. Three wins to open the campaign. Nine losses to dampen it. Now 14 wins to climax it. With the NCAAs in the wings, the streak can go to 20 or end with one loss. Either way, they got there.

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