Quakers rebound Saturday at Harvard

The 77-63 win moved PennThe 77-63 win moved Pennback into a tie for first in Ivies CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- No one knew what to expect when the Penn men's basketball team faced Harvard in Cambridge, Mass., Saturday. The night before, in a tiny gym in Hanover, N.H., the Quakers took Dartmouth (13-6, 6-2 Ivy) to the limit before collapsing in defeat. The loss was unprecedented. The last time Penn (6-1, 11-7) fell in an Ivy League game, the Quakers seniors were still in high school. And so the questions arose: How would the Quakers deal with defeat? Less than 24 hours after falling to the Big Green, Penn overcame a slow start to give a strong answer. The Quakers played like the team that won 48-straight Ivy games, defeating the Crimson, 77-63. No other outcome would have been acceptable to the team. "We weren't going to be beaten and sit down," Penn swingman Ira Bowman said. "We had to come back and respond." The Quakers started the game slowly, while Harvard came out of the gates on fire. The Crimson (4-4, 12-7) grabbed a 10-point lead early in the contest, as forward Michael Gilmore scored nine of Harvard's first 11 points. But Penn clawed its way back. The team said its poor play was a combination of fatigue from the long trip and the emotionally-draining Dartmouth loss. "We probably had a little of the Dartmouth loss in us," Quakers coach Fran Dunphy said. "We were feeling sorry for ourselves the first 10 minutes or so. We needed a couple of minutes to shake out of the doldrums." In order to regroup, Penn called a timeout with 6 minutes, 34 seconds gone in the half. According to Dunphy, the Quakers talked about their intensity level and what the team had to improve to avoid a second-straight Ivy loss. The scare tactics worked, as Penn scored the next eight points. Guard Donald Moxley had six of those, and center Tim Krug chipped in a jumper from just inside three-point range on the right side. The Quakers tied the game with 5:34 remaining in the half on a Bowman three-pointer from the top of the key. With a Krug layup over Harvard forward Chris Grancio exactly a minute later, Penn took the lead. The Quakers would not trail again. "They're proven winners," Gilmore said. "They showed that when, in clutch time, they just came through. They seem to have that one extra effort that just makes a difference on key plays, and that could really turn the tide of a game." The Quakers seemed to play in shifts, with each player dominating the game for several minutes. Even forward Cedric Laster got into the action, chipping in nine points, all in the first half. The second half was controlled by Bowman and Moxley. Bowman had 20 points in the latter frame, while Moxley added eight. "[Bowman] just took it upon himself to do a real good job, and he did," Dunphy said. "He just took the game over at one point. Go-to guys step up and do things like that at certain times." Harvard's highly-touted forward, Kyle Snowden, was held to just eight points on 4-of-9 shooting. The Ivy's leading rebounder was held in check by Krug and forward Paul Romanczuk, who had two blocked shots apiece. Snowden did manage 12 rebounds, despite his offensive troubles. Gilmore, however, was the dominant scoring force for the Crimson. To add to 25 points and five rebounds, the 6-foot-6 senior also had four blocked shots. After being held scoreless by Princeton Friday night, Gilmore got his revenge against the Quakers. "He came out tonight with a real fire and a determination to make shots," Harvard coach Frank Sullivan said. "Once he got it going, and we saw he was shooting, it was, 'Give him the ball.' " Bowman was matched up against Gilmore on defense, though neither was able to contain the other for very long. Both players excelled at using their teammates' screens to slow the defenders just long enough to get a shot off. "I just had to come out and try to be a little more aggressive and force the issue," Bowman said. "You don't win the Ivy League a couple years in a row feeling sorry for yourself." Penn's victory over Harvard the day after losing The Streak proved they are still a force to be reckoned with in the Ivy League. Currently tied atop the standings, the Quakers have their fate in their own hands. And that's the way they like it. "The season's not over," Krug said. "We have to come back stronger and we have to come back better, and we have to play harder and we have to win."