Jesse Spector: The team that never was

PRINCETON, N.J. -- As the Penn men's basketball team walked off the court at Jadwin Gym after last night's season-ending, 68-52 defeat, he was there again. He shook hands with some of the Quakers, consoling them at the end of a supremely disappointing 12-17 campaign. Michael Jordan was at a lot of Penn games this year, but he couldn't help his former teammates on the court. And while the Quakers seemed to have enough talent to make up for Jordan's graduation, they never replaced his intensity or what he added to the team's chemistry. Jordan brought the best out of his teammates, and he brought those teammates together to form a championship club. That never happened with this year's Quakers. For all their talent, they never once played 40 minutes at their best and they rarely looked like champions. "We just never came together," Penn captain Geoff Owens said. "We showed signs of it, but we never fully came together as a group and played team basketball like we could. For the most part, we were inconsistent." Those inconsistencies frustrated Owens all season long. He was an utter warrior for this team, but never seemed able to shake off the constant injuries that plagued him, no matter how much he downplayed them. Owens scored just five points with four rebounds in his final collegiate game last night, leaving the bulk of Penn's scoring to a pair of enigmatic sophomores. Point guard David Klatsky tied a career high with 15 points last night, but 12 of those were in the first half. He was 0-for-2 from the field after halftime with three turnovers and just two assists. Because of his lack of size, Klatsky rarely creates much off dribble penetration, one of the areas where Jordan was strongest. And while Klatsky shows flashes of leadership at times, those times are usually when Penn already has the lead. He's not one to rally the troops when an opponent goes on a run as Princeton did last night. Compared to Ugonna Onyekwe, though, Klatsky is a firebrand. Onyekwe is as quiet as quiet gets, and his play all season long was befuddling. After earning Ivy League Rookie of the Year honors last year, expectations were extremely high for Onyekwe. But he only had one really stellar game, scoring 26 points with 11 rebounds against Seton Hall. But even against the Pirates, Onyekwe missed a last-minute free throw that could have put the Quakers in the lead. Last night, Onyekwe scored 14 points in 20 minutes, but played himself out of the game by fouling out on unwise infractions. One of his fouls was on Princeton's Andre Logan, while Logan was attempting a three-pointer. Another time, Onyekwe fouled a Tigers player in the backcourt after committing a turnover. Onyekwe finally fouled out with 2:09 left in Penn's season on a charging foul. Although the game was already out of reach at that point, Onyekwe had played himself out of the outcome long before that. Onyekwe played himself out of too many games in one way or another this season, either with fouls or with poor play. He was one of about five players who could score 20 points for the Quakers on any given night. The Red and Blue had plenty of talent at their disposal. But they squandered that talent through inconsistent play, and never came together as a team. "We never really hit a great flow on offense," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. The team that walked away last night with the Ivy League title, Princeton, did come together. The Tigers rallied around new coach John Thompson III and bucked the odds to clinch a spot in the NCAA Tournament. "One of the problems was lack of chemistry on our team last year," Princeton captain Nate Walton said. "This year, chemistry was so unbelievable from day one... it started with Coach Thompson." Now, Thompson will have a chance to go to the NCAA Tournament. And it will be a long summer for Dunphy, who was never able to coax the Quakers to consistency.

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