Penn routs Hofstra behind Moxley's 21

UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- Any of the 750 spectators who arrived late to Nassau Coliseum last night missed a hell of a ballgame. En route to an 83-55 rout of Hofstra, Penn managed to accomplish a series of firsts. For the first time all season, Penn has a winning record at 7-6. And, perhaps more importantly, Fran Dunphy's Quakers finished off an opponent early and never looked back. After relinquishing all of a 15-point lead Saturday against La Salle before eking out an overtime victory, Penn made sure an undermanned Hofstra squad (7-10) was never in the ballgame. A fast-break dunk by swingman Ira Bowman gave the Red and Blue a 20-point bulge just over nine minutes into the ballgame, and that margin never slipped below 17. "Life's not all roses," Hofstra coach Jay Wright said. "You've got to deal with some tough times, and tonight was one of those times. We're trying to build a program here and if we're going to do that, we have to give a team like Penn a better game." Penn's dominance came in all phases. It came early, and it came often. Quakers center Tim Krug began the contest with a pair of three-pointers. Those efforts were followed by a pair of free throws from freshman forward Paul Romanczuk free throws, a tip-in by Krug and two more inside buckets by Romanczuk. 14-0 Penn. But more impressive than Romanczuk's brilliant inside play (18 points on 6-9 shooting in his second career start) or Krug's 18 points, nine rebounds and six assists was the Penn defense. In the first ever meeting between the two schools, the Quakers held the Flying Dutchmen to just 22.2 percent shooting from the field in the first half and caused 10 turnovers in that opening stanza. The majority of those takeaways led to easy buckets at the opposite end, leading to a commanding 37-16 for Penn at the intermission. "We played smart and we played hard," said Krug, the MVP of the evening's doubleheader, which also included a 65-52 Adelphi victory over the University at Stony Brook. "The defense did a good job -- especially the guards who cut off penetration. That makes our job on the inside much easier." And it made Hofstra's job a lot more difficult. "Penn is a great defensive team," Wright said. "They knew who to take away and who to let shoot open jumpers. But we took some shots we do not normally take." One reason for that was the absence of sophomore forward Seth Meyers, who has averaged 13.4 points and 5.3 rebounds per game this season since transfering from UNLV. Myers suffered a mild concussion in practice Monday and is currently listed as day-to-day. Prior to the contest, Wright thought his troop's major challenge would be to take Bowman away from the Quakers' offensive mix. Wright accomplished that when Penn's leading scorer (averaging 16.4 ppg coming in) fouled out with 7:46 remaining in the contest, having tallied only 10 points on the evening. Unfortunately for Wright, the outcome had already been written in the books and the ink had long since dried -- in large part to the continued hot hand of senior guard Donald Moxley. Moxley poured in 22 points and corralled 11 rebounds. He is averaging 17.9 points over the last eight games. Hofstra did not have a Moxley of their own. The Flying Dutchmen did not have anybody step up at all. While Penn got balanced scoring with all five starters in double figures and shot 44 percent from the field on the game, Hofstra committed a total of 18 turnovers, gave up countless second-chance opportunities and failed to disrupt the Quakers' offensive rhythm during the competitive portion of the game. Junior guard Lawrence Thomas led Hofstra with 15 points, and senior forward Rob Ogden chipped in off the bench with 12. But the Dutchmen never got started last night. "I think having Seth would have made a difference, but Penn is an excellent team," Thomas said. "We just seemed lost out there. We were out of sync. Seth gives us defense, scoring and rebounding, and we were outplayed in all of those phases tonight." Heading into a pair of important Ivy League contests this weekend and with 11 of the remaining 13 contests against Ancient Eight foes, the Quakers hope to use this solid overall effort to catapult themselves to a fourth consecutive Ivy League championship and a NCAA Tournament birth. With Penn's Ivy League winning streak at 46 (John Wooden's UCLA teams of the early 1970s hold the record for consecutive conference wins at 50) and a fourth consecutive invitation to the Big Dance well within reach, now is the time for the Quakers to capitalize on the momentum they established at Nassau Coliseum last night. Ironically enough, Penn's last Tourney win (a 90-80 victory over Nebraska two years ago) came on the same Coliseum hardwood as last night's laugher. "This building has some very pleasant memories for me," Dunphy said. Dunphy had one more memory to smile about as he went to sleep last night.

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