Two down, 12 to go for M. Hoops

The Penn men's basketball team opened Ivy League play with two home victories. With Friday's snowfall blanketing the Palestra and the 2,000-plus crowd barely registering on the noise meter, the Penn men's basketball team struggled to put away previously punchless Yale (1-11, 0-2 Ivy) in its Ivy League season-opener. The Quakers narrowly held off a second-half Elis surge to escape with a 68-62 win. The next night, with much of the snow melted, Penn (6-3, 2-0) emerged from hibernation to entertain a larger and livelier Palestra crowd with an 86-55 drubbing of visiting Brown (2-12, 0-2). On Friday, the Quakers abused Yale for the first four minutes, holding the inexperienced Elis -- who start two freshmen and two sophomores -- scoreless while building a 9-0 lead. With Penn holding a 15-9 edge with 10:38 to play, Michael Jordan headed to the bench for a quick breather. Yale capitalized immediately, as freshman guard Onaje Woodbine sandwiched a David Tompkins hook shot with a three-point play and a 15-footer -- both scores following Josh Sanger turnovers -- to put the Elis ahead 16-15 with 9:07 remaining in the half. Jordan quickly reentered the game, and the Quakers responded with a 22-5 run. Paul Romanczuk broke through with four inside buckets down the stretch. Jed Ryan drained a 20-footer with 48.5 seconds left to cap Penn's scoring binge. With 1.1 seconds on the clock and Penn leading 37-21, Woodbine committed an offensive foul -- the Elis' eighth turnover in as many minutes -- but Ryan, looking to throw a last-second baseball pass, moved behind the baseline for a travelling violation. Yale capitalized, as Kevin Marschner tossed up a buzzer-beating three-footer to send the teams to the locker room with the Elis down by 14. "We practice that play a couple times a week, we just made a mental error," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said of the botched inbounds play. "That play was big. It was a message-sender." Dick Kuchen's Yale squad continued the message into the second half, scoring the first 10 points to close the gap to 37-33. With Penn center Geoff Owens in foul trouble -- he headed to the bench with his fourth foul at the 10:23 mark -- Yale sophomore Neil Yanke took over. The Quakers made the little-known Yanke, who averaged 3.6 ppg last season, look like Steve Goodrich. The 6'10" native of Akron, Ohio, hit 5-of-7 field goals and helped limit Penn to zero inside hoops in the half, as Yale cut within one, 50-49. The Quakers had an answer for Yanke's break-out game, though, as a slew of jumpers by Jordan and Frank Brown and a Langel three-point play stretched Penn's lead to seven. The comfort was short-lived, however. Layups by Tompkins and Yanke -- who finished with 19 points and 12 boards -- cut the lead to three with just over three minutes to play. But then Jordan dished to Ryan, who drained Penn's fifth trey in seven attempts on the half, and followed up one of Yale's 24 turnovers with a driving layup at 1:47 that put the Quakers up 65-57 and secured the win. "We got lucky with the win," Dunphy said. "They showed us nothing unexpected. We got off to a false sense of security knowing full well they were going to come back." Owens, playing in his first Ivy contest in almost two years, was particularly underwhelming against Yale, finishing with only two points and four fouls. "He didn't play well. Nobody knows it more than him, and nobody wants it more than he does," Dunphy said. "Yet I wouldn't trade that guy for all the tea in China. But he can't bobble the ball [under the basket]. Just dunk the stinking thing, that's what I want to see him do." Maybe Dunphy was reading the tea leaves, too. Against Brown, the 6'11" junior had three two-handed slam dunks. In the 31-point Quakers romp, Owens grabbed nine boards, swatted four Bears attempts and scored 14 points in just 25 minutes. "[Against Yale] I definitely got tentative. I was worried about fouling, I was thinking about too much," Owens said. "If I just play my game without worrying about picking up fouls I play a lot better." The dismal Bears could not have known what they were in for when they stepped onto the Palestra court. Shaking off the lethargy of the Yale game, the Quakers exploded from the tip-off. Penn scored every time it brought the ball past halfcourt until a three-second violation by Owens at 13:48. Brown's offense was also working in high gear, as the visitors from Providence, R.I., hit 7-of-9 shots to open the game. Yet after 10 minutes, Penn led by 15 points. The Quakers hit an astounding 80 percent (16-for-20) of their first-half attempts. "I can't tell you the last time we did that," Dunphy said. Penn's torrid first-half shooting was characterized by a Jordan play with 9:57 remaining. Off a feed from former high-school teammate Lamar Plummer, Jordan launched a 23-foot bomb, drawing a foul from Brown junior Corey Vandiver in the process. As Jordan fell to the court, the ball swished through; smiling, he pumped his fists up and down repeatedly before heading to the line to complete the four-point play. Brown's inexperience showed in the second-half, as the Bears shot just 8-of-25 after the break while Penn's offense continued to roll. Four starters scored at least 14 points in the game as the Quakers dished out a season-high 24 assists. "The biggest difference was consistency," Brown coach Frank Dobbs said. "We made some foolish errors -- dribbling it off our foot, palming the ball. With experience you just don't do those things. That's what makes it tough playing a team like Penn -- they don't have those types of lapses." Even the reserves got into the act against Brown. With Penn up 73-50 and 2:59 on the clock, senior Brendan Cody, sophomore Jon Tross and freshman Dan Solomito joined Plummer and Sanger on the court. The subs erupted to close the game on a 13-5 Penn run. Tross used all of his 6'7", 190-lb. frame to slam one home with authority with 25 seconds on the clock, while Solomito torched the Bears for three rebounds and seven points in his 2:59 of play -- his first points in a Quakers jersey. Solomito, a 6'6" forward and 1998 first-team Jewish All-American, finished the Penn scoring with 9.1 seconds left on a three-pointer from the top of the key. The Verona, N.J., native then stole the ball at half court with 1.1 left. Solomito capped his fast break with an emphatic dunk but time had already expired, with Penn victorious 86-55.