The Quakers' standard response to the obligatory how-does-it-feel-to-play-a-top-ranked-team question had been taken as gospel: they would make a conscious effort not to think about how good the Tar Heels were. Seemed simple enough.
But the verdict is in, by a 106-71 majority, on how well that worked out.
Freshman Tyler Bernardini had another idea: He simply went unconscious.
For all the conventional wisdom that a measured, half-court, boring game was the only way Penn could keep things close, Bernardini lit up the Tar Heels by doing the exact opposite.
He scored from impossible angles and recognized that he could get out and run the floor just as well as the nation's best blue chips.
He may have been the only one wearing red last night who did; the whole game had an air of inevitability about it. There was as much Carolina Blue as Penn Red in Glen Miller's tie, and as many cheers as boos when the Tar Heels first came out of the locker room.
And although Tyler Hansbrough probably thought he was being complimentary to Quakers nation when he said the Palestra reminded him of high school, it really just drove home how many worlds apart the two programs are.
With Penn struggling late in the first half, Bernardini showed how to narrow the gap.
North Carolina's devastating full-court press had just forced Penn into a silly turnover. Roy Williams smelled blood. He told his team to stay back on the other end of the court and try to grab another two free points.
Instead of helping work through it, Bernardini rushed ahead of the press, took an effortless lob from Kevin Egee coast-to-coast and laid it in for an easy two. Congratulations, young man. You're now one of the few players who can say he's made Roy Williams look foolish, if only for a moment.
* * *
Glen Miller wants his team to play Penn Basketball. But right now, what is that?
A team that has great basketball players? Not now. In years or even months that might change, but right now they mostly have athletes.
A team that has experience winning Ivy titles? Sorry, but outside of Brian Grandieri and possibly Michael Kach, seeing 10 minutes a game on a team that won championships doesn't qualify.
A team that stays calm and doesn't try to do crazy things? Maybe, but what about when being calm and 'playing your game' only produces mediocrity?
Every year the coach of Penn's NCAA Tournament opponent tells us that they don't take Penn lightly because the Quakers will play very 'smart' basketball on the flawed assumption that a school with higher SAT scores equates to a team that can score, defend and rebound.
Last night's game throws the validity of that statement into doubt. For those 40 minutes, Tyler Bernardini Basketball was better than Penn Basketball. His version isn't all about being smart, it's all about being good. And sometimes, that's what the Quakers need.
Andrew Scurria is a junior Political Science major from Wilmington, Del. and is Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is scurria@sas.upenn.edu.
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