AT COURTSIDE: Tigers' run hits Penn in the jugular

A 16-3 spurt in the opening minutes of the second half was all Princeton needed to win easily. It only took Princeton five minutes to put the final nail in the 1996-97 Penn men's basketball coffin. When both teams left their locker rooms for the final 20 minutes of action, the Tigers were clinging to a shaky one-point lead over the Quakers, 31-30. But Princeton's offense, which had been stifled for most of the first half, suddenly caught lightning in a bottle and used a 16-3 run to end any realistic hopes of Penn winning a fifth consecutive Ivy League title. The Tigers scored on their first eight possessions of the second half, which included five driving lay-ups and two big three pointers. Keyed by the return of floor leader Sydney Johnson, who sat for most of the first half with three fouls, the senior from Towson, Md., hit two of the Tigers' first three shots. Using his quickness, Johnson initially blew by junior Garett Kreitz for an inside score and then stole an errant pass from Michael Jordan and raced down court to add another easy deuce. The second half onslaught by Princeton came at such a furious pace that by the time Penn had a chance to catch its breath, the Tigers' measly lead of one had ballooned to 12 points and later 20. During the insurmountable run, the Red and Blue used a 1-3-1 zone defense -- the only time all game the Quakers did not match up man-to-man. The result -- easy drives down wide-open lanes to the hoop. Before the game, Tigers coach Bill Carmody had gone on the record as saying that for Princeton to notch a win at the Palestra it would need to "play smart and hit shots." After bucketing an unbelievable 76.2 percent from the field in the second half, Carmody calmly complemented his team on their intensity and extra effort following half-time. "I thought we played real well tonight," Carmody said. "We shot the ball well and basically tonight our shots went in and that was the difference." In addition to Princeton's blazing shooting (including 11-of-19 from downtown), the Tigers ran their offense to near perfection. Almost all of Princeton's lay-ups came on pretty backdoor passes, including a couple of beauties from point guard Mitch Henderson. The junior from Culver, Ind., first hit center Steve Goodrich on a pass right down the middle for a lay-in. Ten minutes later, Henderson enacted the same play with backup big-man Jesse Rosenfeld. "We ran our offense pretty well in the second half," Carmody said. "Our cuts were a little sharper and when guys were open, they hit their shots." Penn coach Fran Dunphy gave credit to Carmody and the Princeton team for its second-half performance. Dunphy felt that the suffocating defense used by the Quakers in the first half fell apart when the Tigers began to hit their open shots. "As I said before, our best chance to win against Princeton was good ball pressure," Dunphy said. "But I am not sure that our team on a given night like tonight is ready to maintain that kind of pressure for an entire game." Kreitz put it best when he said "playing against Princeton you can't afford to sleep at all on defense." But as Kreitz went on to say, the Princeton win was not all a matter of the Quakers napping -- it was just excellent shooting by the Tigers. Sophomore guard Brian Earl, who last year had a dreadful outing at the Palestra (0-5), bounced back to nail four of eight treys, and leading Princeton with 17 points. In addition, Ivy League Player of the Week Gabe Lewullis also landed four of five bombs, proving once and for all to Quakers fans that his last-second lay-up versus UCLA was no fluke. While Princeton was en fuego from behind the arc following intermission, Penn hit a woeful 1-of-7. Added together with inexperience and the result is a third Ivy League loss for Penn and back-to-back conference defeats at the Palestra for the first time since Princeton and Columbia dropped the Quakers in 1991. It certainly was not out of the ordinary last night to see Penn go through a rough stretch in the opening minutes of the second half. All season, the Quakers have had to hurdle inconsistency both on the offensive end and defensive end. The difference is this time, Penn will not get a chance to make up for their inability to play a solid 40 minutes of basketball, and now the miniscule hopes of the Quakers rests in the hands of other Ivy teams.