Ugonna stop him? Onyekwe stars in win

Ugonna Onyekwe dominated St. Joe's, scoring 20 points and blocking three shots last night. It seemed to be a foregone conclusion. Sooner or later, Penn freshman Ugonna Onyekwe was going to arrive as a bona fide star. The Quakers forward got his feet wet with 14 points in the season opener against national powerhouse Kentucky, but Onyekwe hadn't waded out past his waist since then. Inexperience seemed to hold him back from venturing further into the upper echelon of college basketball players. Until last night, that is. With the last of his three dunks 1:24 from game's end, Onyekwe added a final exclamation point to a game in which he dominated both inside and out, on offense and on defense. Onyekwe fouled out only 14 seconds after that dunk on an attempted block of St. Joseph's forward Ryan Phillips, but he had already more than made his mark in the game. The numbers themselves were impressive enough -- a career-high 20 points, seven boards, three blocks, two assists and a steal. But Onyekwe did a lot more than just clutter the stat sheets. He pulled fans out of their seats with a seemingly never-ending stream of highlight-film material. The Nigerian-born forward started the game's scoring off on Penn's first possession with an authoritative dunk from the baseline on a pass from guard Michael Jordan. And two possessions later, Onyekwe demonstrated his ball-handling skills by slicing through the Hawks' defense, driving hard from midcourt and scoring two points for the Quakers with a soft lay-in. "Early, we allowed [Onyekwe] to get his feet underneath him and some real clean open looks," St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli said. And Onyekwe fed off that early success. In the course of a minute later in the first half, Penn's freshman forward looked like Tim Duncan on a court full of high schoolers. First, Onyekwe sent a shot by St. Joe's forward Frank Wilkins several rows into the stands. He then followed that up with a Palestra-rocking put-back jam off a Geoff Owens miss. But Onyekwe's game wasn't all about flamboyance last night. The Penn freshman played more like a grizzled veteran than a man playing in only his 16th college game. The Quakers forward had been taking -- and missing -- a plethora of wild three-point shots in the past few games, but he hit two of his four from beyond the arc last night. More importantly, Onyekwe also passed on some choice looks from three-point range to feed teammates for open shots. A prime example of this came five minutes into the game when he faked a three-pointer and then drove through the lane and found Owens for an easy layup. Defensively, Onyekwe dazzled with his blocks, but he also managed to keep the ball away from his man. Throughout most of the game, he was matched up with Hawks' forward Andre Howard. Howard came into the game averaging 8.9 points a game, but Onyekwe held the St. Joe's senior to just four shots. "We were hoping that we were able to exploit that matchup [of Howard on Onyekwe] at the other end and they kind of exploited that matchup on us," Martelli said. Onyekwe used versatility as his weapon to exploit St. Joe's last night, grounding the Hawks with his combination of a right-handed perimeter game and a left-handed inside game that features a baby hook polished well beyond the Penn freshman's years. But Onyekwe's versatility didn't just make him look good. It freed up the lane for the rest of the Quakers to penetrate. "During the game, Ugonna hit those couple threes, and when I went off a high screen from him, they didn't help," Jordan said. "So that opened it up for me to go to the basket and get a layup." Although Onyekwe fouled out before the nail-biting ending, he was, like all stars, at his finest at crunch time. The Penn freshman teamed with Owens to block a Howard shot in the lane with 3:31 left and, a minute later, abused Howard inside -- hitting a four-foot hook while getting hacked by the St. Joe's forward. He showed signs of immaturity by missing the foul shot, but he redeemed himself quickly. The exclamation point to Onyekwe's career night came in the form of a rim-rattling dunk with 1:24 left on the clock. He took to the air on a bounce pass from Jordan on the baseline, and by the time he reached the ground, he had not only slammed Penn to a seven-point lead, but made it clear to the Palestra faithful that he has arrived. When Onyekwe committed his fifth foul on the next possession, the Penn fans erupted into a standing ovation for the freshman forward, an ovation that celebrated the long-awaited baptism of the Quakers' newest star.