COLUMN: Just a matter of time

From Daniel Tenenblatt's, "A Perfect Ten" When Michael Jordan sits down, the team suffers immediately. That is not to say that Matt Langel cannot fill in at point guard. Lamar Plummer will also be able to do the job once he gets back into the flow after returning from his eye injury. While coach Fran Dunphy and his players assert that they can rest Jordan occasionally and manage just fine, thank you, the numbers tell a different story. After scoring the first nine points of the game, the Quakers led 15-9 with 10:38 to go in the first half. Dunphy gave Jordan a breather, leaving Langel at the point. On their next three possessions, the Quakers could only manage two turnovers and a missed three-pointer. In only 91 seconds, Penn's 15-9 lead had become a 16-15 deficit. Dunphy called a timeout, put Jordan back in and Penn responded with a 15-0 run. The numbers don't lie. Then with just over two minutes left in the half, Jordan picked up his second foul. Dunphy tried to reduce the risk of a third first-half foul with two stints on the bench for a total of 43 seconds. Yale outscored Penn 5-2 over that span, giving the Elis a 12-2 total edge in Jordan's 2:14 on the bench. Dunphy's response? Play Jordan the entire second half. Saturday's opponent, Brown, was clearly overmatched, but Jordan's first break of the game was still a telling sign. The Quakers exploded for 29 points in the first 10 minutes of the game, a pace that translates to a Paul Westhead-like 116 points. In Jordan's three minutes of rest, however, the Bears outscored the Quakers 5-2. While the margin may not have been that impressive, the shift in momentum was. The Penn offense had scored on all but two trips down the floor en route to a 29-14 lead. But with Jordan on the bench, the Quakers had four turnovers in five possessions. The trend obviously exists, which begs the question, Why? "Tough question," Plummer said. "When he goes out? the offense can sometimes be stagnant because he's more intense. "He basically tells everybody where to go, tells everybody where he wants them to be because the coaches want him to do those things because he's the point guard.? This weekend it was really stagnant when he came out of the game as you can see." Paul Romanczuk had his own reasons. "When he's not on the court, you lose your leader, your point guard, you lose a lot," Romanczuk said. "It's tough when a guy's off the court that's pretty much handling the ball 80 to 90 percent of the time." So what does Jordan think? "I hate sitting down to begin with," Jordan said. "I would like to play until the point where the game gets out of hand. In games, you find extra energy from somewhere when you need it." But even Jordan acknowledges that at least a few minutes of rest are necessary for him to be at his best. Dunphy added that Jordan also has trouble pacing himself, which tends to make matters worse. "If he would just take a possession off offensively now and then? I think it might save some energy, but that's not how he plays," Dunphy said. "He only knows one speed, and I don't think I'll be changing him anytime soon." Jordan needs some rest, but the team struggles immediately when he comes out. So are the Quakers doomed to play big games with an exhausted Jordan logging 40 minutes? Not with the magic of television. While most fans complain about the NBA and its long and boring television timeouts, college basketball has recently jumped on the TV bandwagon. The Ivy League is no exception as four of Penn's first five home games have been televised. These games tend to take longer because they feature TV timeouts at the first stoppage of play after the 16-, 14-, 12-, eight- and four-minute marks of both halves. That's an extra 10 timeouts at 90 seconds apiece, or 15 minutes of downtime. That translates to 15 minutes of rest for the suddenly superhuman Michael Jordan, who can now play 40 minutes without a problem. "In games that are on TV, you get those timeouts at 16 [minutes remaining in the half], 12, eight and four, so that's enough rest," Jordan said. A check of the TV schedule may tell more about the Quakers future than any scoring or rebounding stat ever will. A quick glance shows two of three Big 5 games on TV, as well as six of the 12 remaining Ivy games, including both Princeton games. And, oh, I almost forgot: Every single game in the NCAA Tournament gets televised too.