COLUMN: Owens played well, just not enough

Even though Owens played well, shooting 4-for-6 for eight points, he also hurt his team by playing himself out of the game with fouls. In a game in which many of the good things Penn had done in a 16-game winning streak unraveled, so did Owens' 16-game streak of not fouling out. He had not received a disqualification since Penn's 44-40 loss to Temple on January 20 and stayed out of foul trouble while defending Princeton's talented center, Chris Young, on two occasions. And when Owens did get into foul trouble during Penn's streak, it was a carry-over from tough, physical defense. Owens' play at Temple helped to hold the Owls frontcourt trio of Mark Karcher, Kevin Lyde and Lamont Barnes to an 8-for-26 night from the floor, and Owens was on the court for 30 of the game's 40 minutes. Against Auburn, Owens played 28 minutes, and his five fouls helped to suppress superstar Chris Porter to the tune of just four points. While Brian Cook, the Illini's starting center, did not score against Penn, backup Marcus Griffin exploded for 17 points and 10 boards. The 6'11" Owens, who played just 15 minutes against an Illinois team whose largest player was the 6'10" Cook, was a spectator for eight of Griffin's points. More importantly, when the Quakers cut the Illinois lead to one point early in the second half, Owens was still riding the pine. His presence was missed in the paint 13 seconds later when guard Frank Williams answered with a driving layup that started a 6-0 Illinois run and stopped the Red and Blue's momentum. "He stepped up and made some outstanding shots," Jordan said of Williams. "He penetrated and laid the ball up, and we didn't play well enough defensively." Williams had two such layups while Owens sat. He attempted a third with Owens back in the game, but Penn's big man swatted it away. On the play, though, Owens was called for the fourth and most questionable of his fouls on the afternoon. He immediately went back to the bench and was replaced by Oggie Kapetanovic, as he was every time he sat down during the game. Kapetanovic saw 18 minutes of action and played his best defense of the season. After going through the entire regular season without a blocked shot, Kapetanovic swatted two Illini offerings. But as well as Kapetanovic played against Illinois, he does not have the defensive presence in the paint of Owens, Penn's all-time career blocked shots leader. With Owens in, Williams was only effective from the outside. To a lesser extent, so was Griffin. Four of Griffin's nine points while Owens guarded him came on a pair of seven-foot jumpers. Two more came when Griffin put a shot high off the glass in traffic under the basket. The remaining three came on a three-point play resulting from an Owens foul on a Griffin dunk just seconds after Owens had slammed home two of his own eight points at the other end. On that other end, it became clear against Illinois just how important Owens is to opening up the Penn offense, even though he was only the Quakers' fourth-leading scorer during the season. The Quakers scored 27 points in Owens' 15 minutes, as opposed to 31 in the remaining 25. After he fouled out, Penn scored four points over the next nearly seven minutes as the Illini put the game away. In those minutes, it seemed like all the Quakers could do on offense was miss jump shots. After Owens left, Penn's only points for the remainder of the game came from a Ugonna Onyekwe layup and dunk, a Matt Langel three-pointer and a Dan Solomito three-pointer. Penn shot 34 percent from the field in the second half as Owens played just three minutes. Without Onyekwe's 5-for-11 showing after halftime, that figure drops to just 29 percent. Despite those figures and despite everything else that went wrong for the Quakers against Illinois on Friday, they still had their opportunities. Should Owens be successful in his application for an extra year of eligibility as expected, he'll have a good shot at another opportunity in the Big Dance. Still, given his offensive performance in the brief time he played against the smaller Illini lineup, Owens, like the rest of the Quakers, will have to wonder what might have been for the Quakers in this suddenly wild NCAA Tournament.