Through the first half last night, it looked as if the Quakers' inside game hadn't changed since it got beat up by Fordham for a 38-25 rebounding edge in a loss last game. On defense, Illinois-Chicago's big frontcourt manhandled the Quakers for 12 offensive rebounds against Penn's nine in the first 20 minutes. Penn was down five to the Flames and looked on the verge of a third-straight home loss.
"We came out sluggish," junior Brian Grandieri said. "Coach came in at halftime and questioned, not our manhood, but our character."
The team responded not only with tougher defense, but a drastic change after the shots went up. The result was a 14-10 edge on the Flames' offensive glass, and Penn's sixth win of the season, 90-78.
"It was a little bit of a tale of two halves from a defensive standpoint," Penn coach Glen Miller said. "I'm very disappointed in the first half and overall for the game with all the offensive rebounds we gave up.
"We were playing behind in the low post in the first half, that's something we don't teach. We want to front the post, and god knows how many box-out drills we've done in the last few weeks of practice."
UIC forwards Scott VanderMeer, Jovan Stefanov and Othyus Jeffers had combined for 13-of-21 shooting and seven offensive rebounds, four from Jeffers.
The Flames had 28 points in the paint and 11 second-chance points, compared to Penn's 18 and four, respectively. In a telling moment late in the first half, UIC got three tip-in attempts, the final one ending up in the basket from Stefanov.
But it was clear that coming out of the locker room the Quakers had made major changes. Before, when shots went up a crowd of players right under the basket just seemed to watch the ball clank off the rim, as the rebound was up for grabs, usually coming down to the bigger (6-11 VanderMeer and 6-9 Stefanov), and more athletic (6-5 Jeffers and 6-7 Jermaine Dailey) Flames.
Penn came out doing two things; keeping out UIC players out of the paint on the offensive glass and playing with aggression.
For our players the effort picked up and the execution picked up," Miller said. "No matter what I tried to do defensively, it's a matter of fundamentals and playing with more intensity and laying some bodies out."
Senior forward Mark Zoller agreed that it took a physical mentality just as much as playing with their heads.
"They like to body up and we wanted to take that same mentality, box them out and make sure we got key defensive and offensive rebounds," Zoller said. "They killed us on the boards in the first half, got a lot off offensive rebounds, putbacks. In the second half we knew we had to come out and try to play like them and bend with them a little bit."
Because of these adjustments, the lane was wide open in the second half for Penn players to grab the boards. While Jeffers continued to terrorize the Red and Blue (27 points and 14 rebounds in total), UIC managed only four points in the paint. The Flames still had 13 on second-chance points, but most of them were off of long rebounds.
"I'm very happy with our effort in the second half from a defensive standpoint," Miller said.
The Quakers will hope to take this smart, aggressive rebounding into East Rutherford, N.J. when they face Seton Hall on Saturday. And they'll need it the following game if they want to even begin to think about taking down No. 3 North Carolina.
