'Three minutes to get to the NCAA tournament," said senior guard Amanda Kammes as she pointed to the numbers illuminated on the board. The Crimson and the Quakers stood even with 50 points each.
"What have we got?"
Despite a passionate final run, the Red and Blue could not finish off the Crimson, who had held the upper hand until the last eight minutes of the second half. A turnover in Penn's backcourt with 2.8 seconds remaining extinguished the final sparks of hope for the Quakers, who fell to Harvard, 54-51, ending a six-game winning streak on Friday night at the Palestra.
"Anytime you play Harvard they are going to give you a hell of a game," Kammes said. "We've been toying with losses the entire Ivy League season."
The Crimson (Now 11-6, 4-1 Ivy) certainly lived up to this expectation of tough competition, challenging the Red and Blue and refusing to surrender their lead through the entire first half and into most of the second.
After a hard-fought win in double overtime at Princeton last Tuesday, Penn stepped onto the court at the Palestra with memories of shooting 87.5 percent from the three-point range. They failed to repeat such a performance though, hitting 34.5 percent of their field goals and shooting 33.3 percent from beyond the arc.
But they had bigger troubles.
"We went from shooting fairly poorly at Yale and Brown to shooting very well at Princeton," Kammes said, "I don't necessarily think we shot badly tonight.
"If we are going to win the Ivy League and we are going to win these tough games, it is going to come down to our defense. We didn't box out, we didn't get to the boards when we needed and that really hurt us."
The Crimson managed a total of 27 rebounds to the Quakers' 19 in the first half. But Penn broke away from the daunting statistics in the second half and improved their rebounding to finish with a total of 33 to Harvard's 35.
"In the second half they got fewer offensive rebounds, which is what you want," coach Patrick Knapp said. "So we made improvement there."
It seemed that the Quakers' luck had turned as, at the 7:55 mark, they took their greatest lead, driving up the score to 48-41.
"As mad as we were at halftime we had a lead with eight minutes to go and we didn't make enough plays," Knapp said.
Penn's loss to Harvard, the first of their 2005 Ivy League season, came just three days after last Tuesday's draining game at Princeton. And, when the Quakers filed into their locker room Friday night, they knew that they would be returning to the Palestra in less than 24 hours to face an impressive Dartmouth team.
Still, the players hesitate to blame the flaws in their performance on exhaustion.
"With fatigue it is all about what you can give on the floor," said sophomore Monica Naltner, who led the Quakers with 16 points.
