Last night, Penn did something it had not done in a long time -- win a close game.
It was the first contest all season in which the Quakers' margin of victory was fewer than 10 points. Yale was the last team Penn beat by fewer than 10, on Feb. 21, 2004.
During that span the team let games against Princeton, Temple, Illinois-Chicago, San Francisco and Rider slip away. But last night Penn was able to hold on in an unusually hostile environment at the Palestra.
Ironically, at the end of the game when the Quakers needed to play their best, they really did not.
In the last 12 minutes, Penn hit just four of 18 shots from the field. For the first time all night they began to look out-of-sync on the offensive end, and it was obvious that the game was beginning to head in the wrong direction for the Quakers.
But this time something wasdifferent, and it had nothing to do with Penn's performance.
"Over the years it's a crapshoot," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said in reference to close games. "Sometimes you're going to get it and sometimes you're not."
But Penn's victory over the Hawks had little to do with luck and everything to with the Quakers' heads.
Time after time throughout the night the Red and Blue made smart plays. The Quakers did not finish every play, but they kept mistakes to a minimum -- six turnovers in a game is not too shabby.
Penn was decisively undersized compared to the Hawks' frontcourt. But the Red and Blue was able to win the rebounding battle, 40-35, by being in the right place, boxing out every miss and just wanting it more than St. Joe's.
Twice in the second half the Quakers were able to force St. Joe's players into the air then draw the foul behind the three-point line. Both fouls changed the momentum of the game, and the second, drawn by Tim Begley, halted a 13-4 Hawks run.
Danley's highlight-reel head-fake, drive along the baseline and emphatic two-handed dunk with 41 seconds remaining was another heads-up play. The sophomore was supposed to hand the ball off to Begley when he swung by along the baseline, but realizing his man was overplaying the set, Danley took the ball to the hole himself.
However, the two wisest plays of the game did not occur on the court.
With 34 seconds left in regulation and Penn up by five, Begley struggled with a crucial inbounds play under the Hawks' basket. Seeing that his teammates on the floor could not shed their defenders, Begley had the presence of mind to call a timeout, rather than uselessly throwing the ball inbounds or taking a potentially devastating five-second violation.
Begley's second inbounds attempt went off without a hitch.
Perhaps the most important move of the game came when Dunphy opted to call a timeout with 50 seconds left and the Quakers clinging to a 58-62 lead. As Penn went into its offensive set, everything looked out-of-sorts and it was evident that the possession was going nowhere and would probably end up with a bad shot or turnover.
Instead of letting the play progress to that point, Dunphy called timeout to settle the troops. The next Quakers' shot was Danley's spectacular dunk.
The Quakers finally won a close one, but they did it with brains, not brawn. And if they hope to extend their three-game winning streak they will have to continue to think smart against the brightest of the bunch -- the Ivy League.
Jeff Greenwald is a sophomore economics major from Cleveland and is Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jbg@sas.upenn.edu.
