Josh Wheeling: Penn lacks the Rule of Law

LEXINGTON, Ky.

'Relax, I'm taking over."

Texas A&M; guard Acie Law was overheard to say those words Thursday at a critical time. During a media timeout midway through the second half, Penn had come back from a 16-point deficit to finally take a 39-37 lead.

The senior was done messing around - he decided to put the Aggies on his shoulders.

On consecutive possessions, Law crossed up his man, drove to the basket while drawing at least one help defender, and missed a layup that went right into the hands of forward Joseph Jones for a pair of put-back dunks to take back the lead.

But this was far from the only clutch move by the All-American that game, let alone this year.

With the Quakers cutting an early deficit to 11-9 (after going on an 11-2 run), Law scored seven points on the next three possessions, and within four and a half minutes his teammates had ballooned the lead out to double digits.

"I think his impact in the game [was] in the second half probably. Four or five times they scored with five or less seconds left on the shot clock," Penn coach Glen Miller said of Law. "His penetration hurt."

Earlier in the year, Law famously hit a three in regulation over Texas's Kevin Durant with one second left to force overtime, and hit another with under 30 seconds left in overtime to force a second OT.

As he proclaimed after those shots, that's what he does.

And while Penn has had a few clutch performances this season, there was no one to say "give me the ball, we're going to score" when the team most needed it. As Law, Jones and the crew quickly made it 41-39, no one could stop the bleeding.

By the time Penn called a 30-second timeout, the Aggies were up 10. After an adjustment from Miller Penn cut the lead to five, but got no closer.

In that 4:15, instead of Jaaber driving past the 6-foot-8 man guarding him or Zoller getting a post feed against a player four inches shorter than him, forwards Brennan Votel and Justin Reilly badly missed on three-pointers and backup guard Kevin Egee missed a jumper.

Anyone under 6-10 should be able to hit an open three, but sometimes that's not the shot you want to rely on with five minutes to go.

In the second-round win over Luhlvulle, "Mr. Clutch" (as Law has been nicknamed) would sprint to whoever had the ball late and basically demand a handoff. In that game, he helped the Aggies come back late by drawing three fouls and hitting all six free throws down the stretch.

Aside from Ugonna Onyekwe, who was a three-time leading scorer for Penn in the Tournament and dropped 30 in a close loss to Oklahoma State in 2003, the Quakers haven't in the last decade had that clutch player to take the team on his back. Tim Begley and Jeff Schiffner were great shooters, but because they were not experts at creating their own shot could never really take over during an Tournament game.

Zoller and Jaaber showed flashes of brilliance in big games this season that hadn't been there in years past. Zoller hit three straight free throws after he got fouled on a desperation three to beat Temple, and Jaaber led the team to a two-point win over Dartmouth after Zoller had fouled out.

And it would be an understatement to say that Penn will have trouble finding guys to play clutch like that next year.

However, when their season came down to it, they couldn't recognize the mismatches fast enough, and by the time Zoller took the initiative to score it was too late. Acie Law, on the other hand, kept his word.

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