ANALYSIS: M. Hoops makes run at right time

The Penn men's basketball team utilized a well-timed run to put away S. Joe's. It had the right atmosphere and the right participants, but something about Monday night's game between Penn and St. Joe's was atypical of recent Big 5 matchups. Unlike last year's heart-stopper against the Hawks or November's court-storming thriller with Temple, Monday's game did not go down to the wire -- although with the halftime score tied at 28, it certainly had the potential. But Monday's game, like many of Penn's recently, was a game of runs, and the Quakers had the best run of the night. It was a run, however, unlike most of Penn's runs this season. The placement of these runs has been a problem in other games, as Penn's opponents often steal momentum that the Quakers establish with early runs. Against the Hawks, timing posed no such dilemma. When the Hawks called a timeout with 10:31 left in the second half, Penn had a 49-36 lead, outscoring St. Joe's 21-8 in the period's first 9 1/2 minutes. St. Joe's would not recover. Dating back to the first game of the season against Kansas, halftime has been a momentum killer for the Red and Blue. Last week against Yale, for example, it took Penn almost five minutes after intermission to score its first points. The situation was different on Monday, and a huge part of that difference was guard Michael Jordan. "[Jordan] is an outstanding basketball player," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "He is tenacious, a competitor, he wants to win very badly. Sometimes, he drives his teammates crazy." With 12:04 left in the game, though, it was St. Joe's who Jordan was driving crazy. Jordan stole the ball from Hawks forward Andre Howard, his fourth of a career-high-tying five steals on the night. He then took off down court, stopped at the three-point line and calmly buried his shot -- and the hope of most St. Joe's fans. The Quakers led 42-34. "[Jordan] has a fearlessness about him," St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli said. "He's an average shooter, or a slightly less than average shooter, and yet he'll take that three." While that three was the highlight of Penn's second half performance, Jordan was not the only one making contributions to the Quakers' effort. With 30 seconds gone in the period, forward Paul Romanczuk found center Geoff Owens down low for an easy layup. Although both big men had subpar games -- due in large part to the Hawks' interior defense -- this play got Penn rolling in the second half. And that roll continued on the defensive end of the floor. After Rob Haskins hit a jumper to open the scoring for the Hawks with 17 seconds gone in the half, it would be more than three minutes before St. Joe's would score again -- and almost another three until they found the hoop after that. While the Hawks were having difficulty getting their shots to fall, the Quakers were not having that problem. And when they were not hitting shots, they were often drawing fouls. The most critical of these plays was made by reserve forward Josh Sanger. After a missed Jordan shot, Sanger grabbed the board, made a strong move to the basket, drew a foul and then hit the free throw to complete the three-point play. "Josh Sanger was tremendous," Dunphy said. "I thought he did a great job." Likewise, the Quakers as a whole did a great job in the first 10minutes of the second half and did not display any lethargy after the break. "I think in a city series game like this, where the Palestra is packed, that you're never going to go up 11 and up 16," guard Matt Langel said. "And then the game is going to be over." Of course, the game was not over with 10 minutes remaining. But in this game -- where Penn's run came after the break, rather than at a less crucial point -- a 21-8 run was enough to put the game away.

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