Bruiser Flint's been watching city basketball for a while. Drexel's coach grew up in the area and played for St. Joseph's.
So he's seen the way that Penn plays -- the ball-movement offense that has been a staple since Fran Dunphy took over in 1989.
And for about three minutes last night, Flint's Dragons put on a clinic on how to run a Penn-style offense.
In the 15-0 run early in the second half that put Penn away, the Dragons scored three points on five straight possessions. They did it using good passing and ball movement, everything that Penn's fans have come to expect from their own squad.
It was everything that the Quakers didn't do.
Penn opened the game with a possession where every player touched the ball, ending in a three-pointer by Tim Begley. Rarely did the Palestra crowd see that kind of ball movement from the Red and Blue for the rest of the night.
The Quakers rushed shots, didn't make the extra pass and shot three-pointers when they didn't need to.
All of that contributed to a poor shooting percentage -- 36.5 from the floor, 29.0 from the three-point range -- for the second straight contest.
"I credit their defense a bit, but we have to trust one another to get it done collectively," Dunphy said.
The Dragons got that early 11-point second half lead and forced Penn to not play its offense for the rest of the game. Flint had a defensive plan coming into the game, and the Quakers played right into it.
"I thought we played great defense," Flint said. "Our game plan was to shut down either Schiffner, Begley or Toole -- two of the three -- because if two or three of those guys get off, they're tough to beat."
None of them got off last night, as the three combined for just 9-of-24 shooting. And even though he was in early foul trouble, Penn forward Koko Archibong should have had more than three shots on the night. That's only one shot for every nine minutes Archibong played.
If the Quakers are going to live up to the preseason hype, Archibong is going to have to contribute more than four points and five turnovers.
"I wasn't in the game that much -- I had foul trouble," Archibong said. "But, definitely, I need to contribute a lot more than I did tonight."
Instead of passing it into the big men like Archibong, Penn shot a ridiculous amount of three-pointers, 31 in all. Just because they made 16 last year against the Dragons didn't mean that they were going to shoot as well this season.
"We need to be a little more inside-out oriented," Dunphy said. "We probably took too many threes, to be honest with you."
Robert Battle is another story. Drexel's senior center torched the Penn defense for 21 points and 10 boards, including five on the offensive glass.
"Our whole game plan was to go inside to Robert," Flint said. "I didn't think they had anybody that could guard Robert."
The scary thing for the Quakers is that this is the second straight game a big man has muscled his way to a strong game. Saturday night, Penn State's 7-foot center, Jan Jagla, had 16 points and 11 rebounds.
That's two straight games where Penn's interior defense has failed to neutralize the opposing squad's center.
It's not the end of the world for Penn fans that the Quakers dropped a winnable game to the Dragons. Sometimes, it's even good for a team to lose early in the season to give them a wake-up call.
"These are great learning experiences for a team," Dunphy said. "I think we were believed that we were a little bit better than we were. I need to do a better job to get these guys to have that mentality."
Regardless of whether Penn's players believed in the hype, the problems are fixable -- run the offense like the players have the talent to and figure out a way to stop big centers.
Now, it's up to Dunphy and his assistants to do just that.
