NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Even amid Penn's elite teams and Ivy titles of the past few years, Yale's John J. Lee Amphitheater has carried a bit of mystique for the Quakers. Before this season, four of the past six contests there ended in upset victories for the Bulldogs.
So it was not surprising that after amassing an 18-point first-half lead on Friday, Penn found itself on the wrong end of a furious comeback which put Yale within two with under three minutes to play.
But the Quakers bucked the trend and escaped with a 70-63 win.
"Unbelievable," senior captain Brian Grandieri said. "Unbelievable."
The elation was one part pride about having put his team's New Haven woes behind it, and one part pure relief.
After a ruthlessly efficient first half in which the Quakers notched assists on 16 of 18 field goals and shot 52.9 percent from the floor, they came out flat in the second frame.
Yale forced three turnovers right after the break and steadily closed the gap behind 13 second-half points from guard Eric Flato. And as the 1,876 fans grew louder and louder, the Penn offense began to stall. The Quakers were held to just six field goals.
"It just feels like we played one of the better first halves of basketball on both sides of the ball we've played all year long," Penn coach Glen Miller said. "We didn't sustain that, and it hurt us in the second half."
Grandieri added, "We were taking quick shots and we really got lazy on some of their screens."
Luckily for Penn, its solid first-half effort made up for a sub-par performance down the stretch.
Grandieri paced the Red and Blue with a great all-around effort, scoring 14 points (including 4-for-4 from three-point range) and notching 10 rebounds and six assists. But just as helpful to the cause were a pair of freshmen, Tyler Bernardini and Jack Eggleston.
Bernardini poured in 16 points on 7-for-9 shooting from the field, and Eggleston scored 18 and converted on all 10 of his chances from the charity stripe. Eggleston's six free throws in the final two and a half minutes helped stave off the Bulldogs' late run.
It was a welcome sign of maturity for an inexperienced team.
"We're not a young team anymore," Grandieri said. "That can't be an excuse anymore, and these guys grew up a lot."
This was just the kind of hard-nosed performance that Yale coach James Jones felt was lacking from his team early. A frustrated Jones was still absorbing the loss in the postgame press conference, but he had no difficulty explaining why his team executed so much better after the break.
"Effort," he said. "That was the difference."
While Penn followed up Friday's victory with an uninspired performance against Brown on Saturday, it will certainly derive some satisfaction with its season sweep of Yale.
But more importantly, the Quakers did something they've failed to do so many times in recent years - they broke the John J. Lee curse.
