Rude awakening from Rams

Fordham's offense was in a rut before Saturday. The Rams were shooting only 39 percent from the field and 31 percent from three-point range.

But all they needed was a visit to the Palestra.

Marcus Stout knocked down five threes and Brenton Butler hit three as the Rams drained 12-of-21 from behind the arc en route to a 77-60 win over Penn.

In what Penn coach Glen Miller called his team's worst performance of the year, the Penn offense seemed to have no flow and the defense struggled to contest wide open looks from deep.

"We reversed the ball pretty well, I thought, and we created some open shots," Fordham coach Dereck Whittenburg said. "Teams have been playing us zone a lot and we struggled. But we mixed it up - we got it inside a lot and we made outside shots."

Miller had a different take.

"They're not a low-percentage three-point shooting team when they're given open looks and there's no pressure on the ball and there's no recognition when matching up," Miller said. "When you lack energy and focus those are the types of things that happen."

Senior guard Ibrahim Jaaber put it more simply: "They drove and kicked. We played terrible on-the-ball defense," he said.

However, even when the Rams weren't knocking down outside shots, they were a tough team to defend.

Junior forward Bryant Dunston terrorized Penn (5-4) on the inside, grabbing four offensive rebounds and scoring 21 points on 7-for-11 shooting - an effort similar to his 20 and 12 performance in Fordham's win over Penn last season. Inside-outside forward Sebastian Greene also grabbed three offensive boards for Fordham (6-3), and was an efficient 6-of-10 from the field for 14 points.

Penn's offense started off working smoothly, but it struggled to find a rhythm down the stretch. In the first seven minutes, Penn had scored all of its 14 points off of layups with the exception of a thunderous put-back dunk by Jaaber. As the Rams' defense tightened, though, Penn couldn't get much going.

"We stopped cutting hard," said Jaaber, who led the team with 18 points on 8-for-11 shooting. "They were pressuring us out on the wings and that's how we got backdoor cuts for layups, but in the second half we weren't looking for the same opportunities.

"I shot well today, but I think most of my opportunities weren't in the offense. That's just a sign that we haven't been running our offense well, I don't get the ball back and I'm not really involved much once I give the ball up," he said.

Penn played well at times, but it came in spurts.

Senior forward Mark Zoller was dominant in the first half with 12 points and four rebounds, but had only two points and no boards in the second. Senior forward Stephen Danley scored eight in the first 2:29 of the second half, but it was sandwiched between a 1-for-6 first-half showing and two fouls that essentially took him out of the game.

Danley and Zoller's four fouls apiece gave sophomore Brennan Votel and freshmen Justin Reilly and Andreas Schreiber some minutes, and they scored only one point, shooting 0-for-4 from the field.

"It's never the 4th foul that kills you, it's 2 and 3, and I picked up some bad ones along the course of the game, and it came back to hurt us." Danley said.

Thanks to a Danley three early in the second half, the Quakers erased a nine-point lead to tie it at 44. But just like in last year's 78-63 loss to the Rams, the Quakers saw a 12-2 run end their hopes of beating the Atlantic 10 team. During that stretch, Penn committed an uncharacteristic five turnovers compared to only one shot attempt.

On the bright side for Penn, Tommy McMahon - who sat out the Navy game due to back spasms - came off the bench to play 13 minutes.

Also, Jaaber's third steal of the night was the 242nd of his career, tying Harvard's Andrew Gellert for the Ivy League's all-time record.

That was one of the few positives to come from the Red and Blue's defensive effort.

"Come to practice on Monday and you'll see how we fix it," Miller said.

Penn will have until the end of finals to shore up its defense. On Dec. 21 the Quakers host Illinois-Chicago, a team that hit 10-of-22 threes in its last game - against Illinois.

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