Big George holds off Elis

Penn junior George Mboya played monstrous defense on Yale's leading scorer Emerson Whitley Saturday. Two points, two assists and a rebound in 31 minutes of playing time are hardly the statistics to cut out of a boxscore and write home about. But for Penn junior George Mboya, these numbers don't tell an angstrom of the full story. Friday night at Yale was not only Mboya's best all-around game as a Quaker, but it was also the best defensive effort on the Palestra hardwood this season -- a court that has seen big names such as Rice's Jarvis Kelly-Sanni, Cornell's Jeffrion Aubry and St. Joseph's Rashid Bey. Trailing Yale 57-37 with 10:18 left in regulation, Penn coach Fran Dunphy called a timeout and inserted "Big George" into the lineup for freshman center Josh Sanger. This move matched the 6'6" Penn junior on Yale center Emerson Whitley. Whitley had spent the game's first 30 minutes giving the Quakers' defense fits -- lighting it up for 21 points on 7-of-7 shooting. But after the timeout, Mboya played fireman, turning the 'en fuego' Whitley cold as ice. Whitley wouldn't hit another shot in the game's final 15 minutes, going 0-for-5 from the field and turning the ball over twice. After entering the game for Sanger, Mboya did not return to the Quakers' bench as his defensive domination anchored a 12-0 Penn run which was part of a larger 24-4 Quakers' rally. The Kenya native was an especially clutch performer in the closing minute of regulation. With just 35.7 seconds left, Mboya's steal on Whitley gave the ball to back to the Quakers. And then Mboya tipped a loose ball off the offensive glass to Penn junior Paul Romanczuk with 13.0 seconds remaining. The tip set the stage for Romanczuk's game-tying free throw. In the final seconds, strong Mboya defense denied Whitley a good look at a buzzer-beating jumper. A hand in Whitley's face proved the difference between Penn's overtime victory and Yale's winning its third straight from Penn on a buzzer-beater. "I think he did an excellent job at stopping me with his defense," Whitley said. While Saturday night was undoubtedly Mboya's best game, his stellar defense was not a one-time phenomena. Penn's mid-game runs all season have come when No. 13 is on the court. The Quakers are 6-0 when Mboya is on the court for more than 20 minutes -- with wins coming against Rice, Lehigh, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale and Brown. On the flip side, the Red and Blue are just 7-9 when Mboya has seen less than 20 minutes playing time. And the one game which Mboya never took off his warmups turned out as the Quakers' most embarrassing defeat of the season, a shocking 71-70 defeat at Yale. Apparently, Romanczuk and Penn forward Jed Ryan did just slightly better at stopping the Ivy League's No. 2 scorer than Sanger. In Penn and Yale's first meeting of the year, Whitley scored nine points on 3-for-6 shooting before fouling out after just 19 minutes -- lucky for the Quakers, because while Mboya stopped Whitley, the others could only hope to contain him. Two weekends ago, Mboya proved to be the key ingredient off the bench in the Quakers' weekend sweep of Harvard and Dartmouth. With Ryan breaking his pinky finger in that Thursday's practice, Dunphy had no alternative but to put the Rice transfer, whose minutes had been dwindling, back into the rotation. On the weekend, Mboya scored just four points and grabbed 12 rebounds in 46 minutes. But again, those numbers weren't the whole story. Two Fridays ago against Harvard, Mboya's defensive pressure keyed a first-half comeback, as he forced the Crimson into both a five second violation and a turnover for 10 seconds in the backcourt. Last Saturday at Dartmouth, Mboya was again a defensive monster, spelling the tired Sanger for 26-minutes and never missing a beat. But before Ryan went down with an injury, Mboya had fallen out of Dunphy's favor, dropping from an opening-day starter against Rice to below JV standouts Mike Sullivan and Jeff Goldstein on the depth chart. Mboya's minutes per game had fallen from 16.9 in the Quakers' first ten games to 7.5 in their next eight heading into the New England weekend. Many factors contributed to Dunphy's reluctance to play Mboya. None more so than his putrid 37.5 percent (6-16) foul shooting. But while Penn's free-throw shooting is prettier without Mboya, the Quaker's 'D' can get kind of ugly. "George did a good job," said Dunphy after remarking on Penn's season-long defensive. "He has the kind of athleticism that shuts some people down." Mboya's quiet demeanor may also cause him to get lost in the shuffle. Unexpected when looking at his 6'6" 210-pound stature is that the junior forward wouldn't even attend the Yale post-game press conference because he's not the type to talk about his performance. But as world-renowned management professor Peter Drucker wrote, "leadership comes in all different forms." Even as silent as Mboya is, his defense all season has translated into victories. And manufacturing wins is a sign of leadership. It's no surprise that within minutes after Mboya came into the game in the second-half Saturday, Elis' coach Dick Kuchen grabbed an assistant coach screaming, "We need leadership -- and we need it now." It doesn't say as much about character to talk trash up and down the court, shooting the ball on every possession. Silent and steady defense, however, makes a big difference. And that's what George Mboya has provided this season -- not just Saturday night but whenever Dunphy inserts him into the game.