Harvard coach Frank Sullivan couldn't sit down.
He dutifully answered the questions at Penn's post-game press conference, but after about five minutes he did what he had been itching to do since it became apparent that the Crimson were going to lose - he left the Palestra.
His team had been the victim of three monster dunks from Ibrahim Jaaber, and that was only a small part of the pounding inside that Harvard received.
Over the weekend the Quakers were finally able to establish a concrete dominance inside, with 36 and 42 of their points coming from inside the paint against Harvard and Dartmouth, respectively.
"I just felt that we were a little bit too loosey-goosey and not looking inside when it was open," head coach Glen Miller said of his team's play before the weekend. "Finally we had good execution in these games."
The only part of the puzzle missing to the Quakers' ideal inside-out attack was a lack of poise from behind the arc.
This proved to be a big problem in Penn's nonconference contests, when a mismatch in size and athleticism made it difficult to be effective in the low post and demanded proficiency from long range.
When the team has been forced to settle for outside shots this season, the results have been inconsistent, and sometimes disastrous.
This weekend was no exception. The Quakers only connected for five of 14 threes against Dartmouth, while Brennan Votel netted the lone successful shot from behind the arc out of 10 Penn attempts against Harvard.
"The challenge was big for us to guard the three-point line, so for us to come out with a 20-percent field-goal defense against the three-point, I think it was really strong," Sullivan said of his team's perimeter defense.
After making just one of nine three-point attempts in the first half, Miller made some big adjustments to shift the emphasis on offense to one that was almost entirely inside.
"We made an adjustment, re-focused and got the ball inside, so it doesn't concern me," Miller said of the Penn's poor outside shooting. "Harvard's an aggressive team. . They got the pressure on us so we didn't get that many open looks from three."
But as the season winds toward NCAA Tournament time, those troubles from earlier in the year are likely to resurface.
Muscling inside against top-notch teams promises to get a lot tougher than wearing down a Crimson squad that was exhausted to begin with from a double-overtime loss to Princeton the night before.
Back on top of the standings, Penn could have the responsibility of representing the Ivy League in the Tournament.
The Quakers must be prepared to use the next slew of conference games to work on both aspects of their offense - inside and out.
Parisa Bastani is a junior Biological Basis of Behavior major from Basking Ridge, N.J. Her e-mail address is
pbastani@sas.upenn.edu.
