That's a start: Quakers fry Rice

The Quakers overcame a huge size deficit with outside shooting to defeat Rice and its frontcourt. As Rice's 6'11", 230-pound center Alex Bougaieff towered above Penn's 6'8" freshman, Josh Sanger, at the Palestra's midcourt Saturday, Rice coach Willis Wilson couldn't help but look wide-eyed at four glaring size mismatches in the Owls' favor. But Sanger won the opening tip, knocking it back toward Penn point guard Michael Jordan -- an auspicious sign of things to come for the Quakers. For 40 minutes, the undersized Quakers (1-0) played bigger than life, out-hustling the Owls (0-3) for loose balls and out-totaling their Palestra guests on the scoreboard, 78-73. "It was a little tough for us to get up for this game," Rice guard Bobby Crawford said. "We had a rude awakening." Penn junior George Mboya emerged from the Quakers' bench as the antidote to 6'9'' Rice forward Jarvis Kelley Sanni, matching the forward's muscle on the low post. The Owls, however, never did quite find an answer to Jordan, who led the Quakers with 21 points, six rebounds and eight assists. "In the first half, [Jordan] did a real good job of breaking down the defense," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Penetration-and-kick, penetration-and-kick opened up the offense. He's got a really good feel for the game and he's really unselfish." Rice had a chance to shut the door on Penn early, going ahead 22-14 in the game's seven opening minutes behind Sanni's lightning-fast 11 points. But with a Quakers 20-second timeout, a short jump shot by Frank Brown and a Mboya three-point play, all of sudden the Owls' lead was five. As the Rice defense collapsed on a Jordan driving , the sophomore point guard fed behind the arc to often open Jed Ryan and Garett Kreitz, who exchanged Rice two-pointers for Quakers' threes. As the Red and Blue charge mounted, Rice's defense returned to a strict man, and Jordan began taking offensive duties upon himself. A driving lay-up with 2:51 left in the first half not only went as Jordan's first field goal, but also knotted the score at 36. Another Jordan jumper put the Quakers ahead by two. But the shot that the Owls will remember was the point guard's third. Jordan captured an inbound pass with just 3.9 seconds to go in the half, drove the length of the floor and buried a buzzer-beating jumper from the foul line's left-hand corner. The shot put Penn ahead at break, 40-38, a lead the Quakers never surrendered. "I don't think I changed my philosophy," Jordan said. "They saw I wasn't trying to score so they laid off me. My teammates set nice screens for me and I was getting open." Eight seconds into the second half, the officials called Sanger for his third personal foul and Dunphy again ordered a Mboya. While it was offense that kept Penn alive in the first half, Mboya and Ryan's strong defense on Sanni and Bougaieff helped the Quakers pull away after intermission. Instead of trading baskets, the Quakers found themselves scoring the points on the early possessions of the frame. Sanni, who shot 5-of-8 from the field in the first half, was held in the second by Mboya and Ryan's defense to 3-for-9. Bougaieff disappeared altogether from the offensive flow, leaving Wilson hollering at his big man to just get open. Despite getting smoked 21-6 on the offensive boards, the Penn interior defense slowly pushed the Owls front court out toward the perimeter, where size was neutralized. Sanni slowly gave way to the outside shooting game as Rice senior guard Crawford bombed away, leading all scorers with 22 points, but also dismantled the Owls game plan in the process, shooting 1-for-8 from three-point land. "We got into a stretch when we got way too perimeter-oriented," Wilson said. "That wasn't our game plan. There was a time when everything went up from the outside and nothing from in the paint." The Quakers, conversely, had players who last season frequented the outside shot driving more to the hoop. Sophomore guard Matt Langel came off the bench to score 14 points on 6-for-7 shooting from the field. The sophomore uncharacteristically took just two three-pointers, hitting both. Kreitz added 13 on 3-for-7 three-pointers but showed slashing ability as well. Even the still-injured Paul Romanczuk came off the bench for eight minutes and made a couple hard drives to the hoop. Shooting percentage loomed large in this contest, with the Quakers' hitting 51.9 percent from the field to the Owls' 37.7. In addition to Langel's 6-for-7 game, Jordan was 8-for-12 from the field and Ryan 6-for-12. Even freshman Sanger, who isn't known for his touch, hit on his only attempt. "We were all happy that he made that first jumper," Dunphy said. "Because we know well that's not a strength of his." Height, at least on paper, wasn't a Quakers strength either. But it wasn't too long after the opening tap that Penn showed its resiliency -- adapting to the size deficit and transforming their shortcoming into an advantageous drive-and-kick offense. The jury's still out on Penn for 1997-98, but if nothing else, the Quakers showed on Saturday that they can exceed expectations. A season-opening victory over Rice indicates that even without 6'11" center Geoff Owens, out with a hypertension-related problem, victories can still be won.

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