CLEVELAND
Near the end of the game, Tim Begley's dark blue jersey was even darker than usual, stained with sweat after his 39 minutes of action. The senior captain left everything he had on the floor, but it still was not enough to beat fourth-seeded Boston College.
Although the Eagles shot 57.7 percent from the field and hit two thirds of their three-pointers, the Penn players did not chalk up the loss to a combination of a bad day and the Eagles' hot shooting, nor did they say that they played well but lost to a better team. Instead, the Quakers were upset with themselves, and felt that they missed a few valuable opportunities to get back into -- and maybe even win -- the game.
Penn lost eight other games this season, but the reaction after this one was different, and it speaks volumes of what this team has accomplished since its rocky 4-7 start.
"Our guys played their butts off," Begley said, angry at the suggestion that the bigger Boston College players bullied Penn around.
It was this type of emotion -- absent early in the season -- that propelled the Quakers to the Ivy League title and helped them mount their run yesterday that sliced their deficit to nine early in the second half.
Both runs -- in the season and in the game -- were executed by a team that continued to overachieve in the last 18 games of the year.
However, as usually happens to overachievers, Penn came crashing down to earth.
Only Begley and sophomore forward Mark Zoller were really on their games, and as Begley had been saying all week, a perfect performance would be needed in order to upset the Eagles. That lack of depth cost Penn dearly. Boston College simply had too much skill and too much size for the Quakers to really battle with.
But even then, they refused to take the easy way out. When they were down, they did not give up, and were still not satisfied at the end.
That is the mark of a champion, of a team that deserves to be in the NCAA Tournament.
As for Begley, whose teams are now 0-3 in Tournament games, he was able to go out giving his all, draining every last bit of energy from his body.
"I am very happy on how he played today on this stage and for his last college basketball game," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said of his team's unquestioned leader.
Begley has become one of Penn's all-time greats mostly because of this season. But he too has overachieved throughout his career. He has been criticized for being too slow, unathletic and not a good shooter.
The supposedly unathletic Begley has hit one highlight reel three-pointer after another, and the Begley who is reportedly not a good shooter will leave Penn as the school's career three-pointers leader.
So maybe his critics were wrong, or maybe he too has stepped up to a higher level of play.
Dunphy has repeatedly said that this squad has outperformed not just the media's, but even his own expectations, and added yesterday that he will remember them "fondly."
Could Penn have won this game? If they had played perfectly, the answer was probably "yes." But the same answer applied earlier in the season to the question of "could Penn win the Ivy League title?"
And to answer that question, the Quakers did play nearly flawlessly, taking full advantage of the league's parity this season to go 13-1 in conference play and cruise to the championship by five games.
If Penn ever thought of retiring Begley's No. 31 jersey, it might be more appropriate to hang his unwashed uniform from yesterday's than a giant replica -- the hard work and effort he has put forth this season is what has sparked the team's performance.
While their season finally hit a wall -- and if you watched the game, you know how big and strong a wall Boston College was -- all season Penn has played at a higher level than its raw talent would dictate.
And as Begley and Dunphy said, there is plenty to be proud of.
Josh Hirsch is a sophomore urban studies major from Roslyn, N.Y., and is senior sports editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jjhirsch@sas.upenn.edu.
