By Sebastien Angel The Daily Pennsylvanian
Syracuse, N.Y. -- With about four minutes to play and Penn and UTEP tied at 60, Ibrahim Jaaber collected his fifth foul. So when the Quakers needed a basket down one with under a minute to play, the burden fell to sophomore Aron Cohen. Cohen's shot clanged off the front rim, and the Glen Miller era at Penn began with a 69-66 loss.
"Down one, we had to get a better shot than we did," Miller admitted.
Penn had a chance to lock up the game in the first half when an 11-0 run pushed the Quakers to a 20-9 lead. But even as Syracuse fans in the Carrier Dome were chanting "it's all over," the Miners came back to tie the game at 24-24, buoyed by Penn's sloppy ball-handling.
"Turnovers obviously didn't help," Miller said, pointing to the 14 giveaways the Quakers accrued in the first half.
"We had them on the ropes in the first half," said Mark Zoller, who led all scorers with 23 points. "But we just couldn't stretch that lead."
Poor three-point shooting also plagued the Quakers, who shot only 19 percent from three-point range. Penn's three seniors -- Jaaber, Zoller and Danley -- shot a combined 1-for-9 from long range.
UTEP led by as many as ten after a second-half run, despite the inside presence of Danley and Zoller. But Penn pulled the game level on the back of a Tommy McMahon three-pointer, a Danley dunk and a Zoller lay-in.
But Cohen (and later, Darren Smith) missed three-pointers within the last 60 seconds. In between, UTEP held on to the ball for 10 valuable seconds before Steve Danley could give the foul.
"There are game situations we've got to get better at, but we had ample time after the foul to tie the game," Miller said.
The Miners, on the other hand, kept their composure with a tenuous lead down the stretch. When UTEP coach Tony Barbee's young players weren't making free throws, they were crashing the boards and picking up key offensive rebounds.
"Composure is something that a young team has to develop," he said, adding that specific late-game situations are something his team has stressed in practice.
Ultimately, though, the game was lost in the early part of the second half. Jaaber, whom Zoller called the "blood and guts of the team," had a particularly bad day. The senior was non-existent on the offensive end, scoring only five points in 23 minutes. On defense, he played fairly well but registered only one steal.
With a game against Syracuse looming tomorrow, those numbers will have to improve if Penn wants any chance of a win in its first two games.
