Foul shots key for M. Hoops vs. Lehigh

A newly-coiffed Jordan and a reemerging Frank Brown gear up for the Engineers at the Palestra on Thursday night. In the midst of a nine-day layoff after upsetting No. 6 Temple, the Penn men's basketball team is anxious to work off the holiday turkey against Lehigh Thursday at the Palestra. Against the Engineers (3-2) last year, Penn (1-1) narrowly escaped with a 75-73 victory. After squandering a 15-point second-half lead, the Quakers -- playing without an injured Michael Jordan -- fought off a Lehigh comeback to ice the game on a pair of free throws by Frank Brown with six seconds left. · In last year's meeting with Lehigh, Brown and the Quakers were close to perfect from the charity stripe. The team hit 16-of-18 (88.9%), its best performance of the season. In two games in '98, Penn has been far from consistent from the line. "We didn't get any against Kansas," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Against Temple, Paul [Romanczuk] essentially didn't shoot them very well." Against Lehigh a year ago, Romanczuk hit 7-of-8 free throws. In his most recent performance, however, he hit just 4-of-11 against Temple. The Quakers as a team are shooting 17-of-29 (58.6%). · Prior to the Temple game, Jordan, shooting guard Matt Langel and center Geoff Owens -- the self-proclaimed "Triple Threat" -- abandoned their black New World Order wrestling t-shirts and donned Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) shirts instead. "At first it was the whole N.W.O thing when Goldy and Melcher ['98 seniors Jeff Goldstein and Mike Melcher] were here," Jordan said. "They left, so we kind of just took it and decided to call ourselves the Triple Threat since there's a faction in the ECW called Triple Threat." Penn's "Triple Threat" consists of juniors who have lived together for two years and work out together in the summer. They also reside with a number three -- football wide receiver Brandon Carson. · There is one thing the Triple Threat won't be sharing, however. Jordan followed his 22-point performance against Temple by setting his hair into corn rows. "I got it done Saturday," Jordan said. "It's just a change-up, that's all. My mom would call and say, 'Comb your hair,' or just do something with the 'fro I had." According to Jordan, Langel and Owens will not be following suit. "Owens and Matt are pretty high on their hair," Jordan said. "I try to get them to get baldies -- well, I convinced Owens to get a bald head freshman year -- but Matt's too pretty; he won't touch his head." · Former Blue Chip Illustrated top-100 recruit Frank Brown -- who missed 41 of 55 Penn games the past two seasons with a knee injury -- has made an emphatic return to the Quakers. Pouring in 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting, Brown singlehandedly kept Penn in the game against the Jayhawks. Last week, he followed up that performance with eight points in 26 solid minutes against Temple. Accordingly, Dunphy will allot Brown more playing time Thursday. "He's got to play the whole game ," Dunphy said. "I don't mean 40 minutes, but he's got to rebound; he's got to defend; he's got to make shots for us." Brown actually did all of those things against Lehigh last year. In 32 minutes, he scored 14 points and pulled down a career-high 11 boards. Dunphy has even higher expectations for Brown against Lehigh this year. "I want to see him play. He's spent enough time on the sidelines. He doesn't need any more," Dunphy said. · The Engineers will be without the services of injured power forward Fido Willybiro. The 6'6" junior averaged 21 points and 8.5 rebounds in Lehigh's first two games before being sidelined. Dunphy was quick to point out that the native of Senegal does not pronounce his name like the default American canine moniker. "Feeeeedo," Dunphy said. "If your name was 'F-I-D-O' wouldn't you want to say 'Feedo' as opposed to 'Fido'?" Regardless of pronunciation, Willybiro uncharacteristically turned in a "dog" of a performance last year against Penn, hitting just 1-of-9 field goals and missing a layup with 1:42 to play that would have put his team up 72-71. · The key concern for the Quakers will be stopping Lehigh's Brad Eppehimer. The 6'0" shooting guard ranks third in Division I in scoring with a 25.2 average in five games. Eppehimer has been to the line an astounding 57 times in five games. Jordan, though, is not worried. "He does these little tricks with his legs when he shoots jumpshots where he kicks the guy and falls on the ground," Jordan said. "But I think myself and Matt [Langel], we're smart enough defenders not to go for his little antics."