Although Penn headed into the locker room after the first half trailing by three, there were some bright spots.
For one, the Quakers' defense had limited Rider's leading scorer Jerry Johnson to five points on just 2-of-7 shooting.
Penn's trio of starting guards -- Tim Begley, Ibby Jaaber, and Eric Osmundson -- played effective deny-defense against Rider's point guard, who averaged nearly 19 points prior to the contest.
The last ten minutes of the second half, as well as overtime, were a different story altogether.
Johnson finished the game with 23 points and there were a number of defensive lapses by Penn during crucial junctures of the game.
With 10 minutes left in the second half, Johnson got a wide open look at a three-pointer after Penn failed to rotate on a pick-and-roll. Rider's point guard nailed the shot, and cut Penn's five-point lead to two.
"I thought we did a decent job on Johnson, for the most part," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said.
But Jaaber and Osmundson are known for better-than-decent defense.
"My shots were always there for me," Johnson said.
Part of the reason for the Quakers' late defensive lapse could be attributed to Johnson's talent, or even to what Dunphy described as "foolish" decisions on defense.
Another explanation could be Penn's lack of depth at the guard position, and the consequent fatigue among the starting trio. With three guards in their starting lineup, the Quakers seem to lack players who can consistently contribute off the bench.
As a result, Jaaber, Begley and Osmundson played a combined 124 minutes against Rider.
When Friedrich Ebede and David Whitehurst entered the game in the first half, each promptly committed a turnover. Whitehurst then blew his assignment, failing to box out Rider's Robert Taylor, who grabbed an offensive rebound and scored.
"When you come off the bench ... you want to just not turn the ball over or make a mistake," Dunphy said. "It's not just what you do positively, it's what you don't do negatively."
While Penn boasts eight guards on its 14-man active roster, at this point it seems that only the starting three can be counted on to contribute every game -- if not offensively than at least defensively.
There have been games when Penn got strong contributions from guards off the bench, but most were turned in by Michael Kach, who left the team in December.
Ebede did notch six points and three rebounds in just nine minutes of play against Temple. The problem, however, is that such performances out of Ebede -- or any guard off the bench for that matter -- are rare.
Among guards off the bench who have played, Ebede came into last night averaging 2.3 points, Whitehurst 0.4 points, and freshman Joe Gill has yet to record his first basket.
Penn's lack of depth was only exacerbated by the departure of Kach, who had been averaging 13.2 minutes, 3.7 points and one rebound.
As a result, Dunphy has been forced to use the starters for inordinate amounts of minutes. Last night, Jaaber played 43 minutes, Begley 44 and Osmundson 37.
When the starting guards did go to the bench in the second half against Rider, Dunphy opted for a bigger lineup, inserting Ryan Pettinella -- along with Steve Danley and Jan Fikiel -- rather than Ebede or Whitehurst.
"In the first half, we went to David [Whitehurst] and to Freeway [Ebede], and if they could have given us more solid minutes, they would have played in the second half," Dunphy said.
