Quakers' prayers go unanswered

St. Joseph's defense stopped Penn's chance to score a go-ahead basket with three seconds left in the game. You might not have expected a lot from the Penn men's basketball team Saturday night. The Quakers were coming off a poor-shooting loss to Drexel on Wednesday and were facing St. Joseph's, which regularly beats Penn and is 3-1 in the Atlantic 10 this year. Perhaps you had forgotten that this was a game in the Palestra between two Big 5 teams. A thriller was almost guaranteed, right? It was a thriller, a treat for the 8,722 that filled every seat in the house. When Garett Kreitz banked in a ridiculous three for the Quakers from the top of the key with 49.2 seconds left, the game was tied at 61. And with 6.4 ticks left, Penn, trailing by one, had the ball in the frontcourt and a chance to win the game. But an inbounds pass from Michael Jordan to Paul Romanczuk was knocked away by Hawks forward Duval Simmonds. St. Joe's guard Arthur "Yah" Davis recovered the ball and was fouled with 3.5 seconds on the clock. Davis knocked down two free throws to give the Hawks a 64-61 lead, and then sealed the win by stealing the Quakers' inbounds pass and emphatically dunking at the buzzer. The 66-61 loss -- the 17th against St. Joe's in the last 18 meetings -- was disappointing for Penn (5-6), but it was not without a silver lining. The Quakers' performance against the Hawks was clearly a step in the right direction after the Drexel game. "Obviously we improved tonight over the Drexel game," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "That's our goal. We need to get better as the season goes on, and I'm pleased. I think we gave a good effort tonight. I'm sorry we didn't win the game. We had our chances." As the game started, it didn't look as if the Quakers would have much of a chance. St. Joe's (9-4) jumped out to a quick 11-2 lead with just over three minutes gone by, and the margin continued to grow until the Hawks took a 26-10 lead with nine minutes, sixteen seconds left in the first half. Penn showed a disturbing tendency early on, to pass the ball to the fans in the bleachers, but overall the Quakers' offensive execution resulted in good looks at the basket. The problem for Penn was making shots -- the team went 8-for-28 from the field in the first half. St. Joe's, meanwhile, made 13-of-29 shots (44.8 percent), pretty good for a team that had failed to break 40 percent in its last three games. "We made shots," Hawks' coach Phil Martelli said. "It was really fool's gold, what was going on, because we're not a great shooting team and we made shots. That's what enabled us to get a big lead." A 10-0 run -- featuring seven points from sophomore forward Jed Ryan -- brought the Quakers back into the game, and at halftime the St. Joe's lead was a more manageable nine points, at 33-24. "I wasn't displeased with the shots we were getting," Dunphy said. "We got enough open looks, and I thought they made some real tough shots in the first half. You have to think they're not going to make every shot they take, and we're going to keep firing away and hopefully have some confidence and make some shots." Penn tightened the game even more at the beginning of the second half. Romanczuk scored five quick points on two layups and a free throw, and Kreitz bombed in a three from the deep left corner to pull the Quakers within three at 35-32. "I think they got back in it because in the second half, we weren't ready to play," said Hawks guard Rashid Bey, who led all scorers with 18 points. "We didn't keep the intensity that we had in the first half. They were ready to play and hit a lot of threes." Penn -- in particular Kreitz and freshman Matt Langel -- finally broke out of a prolonged shooting slump in the second half. The Quakers shot 54.2 percent from the floor, including 7-of-16 (43.8 percent) from behind the arc. Consecutive threes by Langel and Ryan, who scored a team-high 13 points, tied the game at 46, and another three from Langel with 7:31 left gave the Quakers their first lead at 51-50. "I think we have some guys that are good shooters -- Garett Kreitz and Matt Langel and Jed Ryan," Dunphy said. "We want them to continue to shoot. I think we'll be O.K. with that." Less than a minute after Langel's second three, Penn fans erupted again. Jordan drove the right baseline, hung in the air and made a layup after being fouled. His free throw gave the Quakers a 54-52 lead with 6:47 left. "We fought back hard and went up a couple of points," Jordan said. "We thought we were going to pull it off." But St. Joe's refused to fade. Forward Dmitri Domani immediately buried a three to reclaim the lead, and Bey hit two more treys down the stretch to give the Hawks a 61-58 lead, setting the stage for Kreitz's shot and Simmonds' defensive heroics. "They did a good job rallying in the second half," said Dunphy of his team. "They understood they were right there. Maybe a made jumper by us and a missed jumper by them, and maybe the outcome's a little different."

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