Bruiser Flint got his wish. With it came pressure.
"My boss told me, 'Now look, man, we got this game here, so you better win,'" the Drexel coach said. "So I said, 'OK. All right. Appreciate it.'"
The Dragons pleased their head honchos with a 66-64 win over Penn in its first-ever visit to the Daskalakis Athletic Center early yesterday morning. But more than anything, the Quakers were to blame for their own demise in front of an ESPN audience.
In the game's waning moments, Zack Rosen had the chance to prove his mettle in Red and Blue.
The freshman guard drew a foul on a one-handed prayer from behind the arc with just under four seconds remaining and Penn trailing by three.
But his first free throw rattled off the rim. A visibly dejected Rosen - who has still yet to convert a shot from the field in two games - made the second but was forced to intentionally miss the third. Forward Cam Lewis secured the rebound in the paint but chose to kick the ball out, and Brennan Votel's desperation hook shot fell a few feet short of the basket.
"I should've been counting seconds in my head," said Votel, who finished with 17 points and a team-best nine rebounds. "I shot the ball too quick. I had a couple of more seconds - could've gotten a decent shot."
Penn coach Glen Miller, however, wished that Votel never had the chance to let one go at all. In his view, the 6-foot-8, 225-pound Lewis should have gone straight up with a put-back off the rebound.
"Oh absolutely," Miller said. "You gotta go right back up. You gotta get it up on the rim, give yourself a chance."
For all 40 minutes, the Quakers deprived themselves of chances. Their shot selection was poor and their execution even poorer. Penn went an abysmal 37.7 percent from the floor, its worst showing since Jan. 19 against Saint Joseph's.
Tyler Bernardini, stellar against No. 1 North Carolina on Saturday, was hardly dominant yesterday. His 14-point output was respectable enough - nobody on Drexel had more than 13 - but he shot just 26.7 percent, connected on a lone three-pointer in the first half and was a non-factor in Penn's main offensive sets.
"The way they played him is what bothers him the most," Miller said. "They were physical on our cutters. . We needed to adjust to the physicality of the game, and I didn't think we stepped up to the plate."
Instead, Votel and guard Kevin Egee led the way; the Quakers were plenty glad the 6-foot-3 senior skipped Social Problems and Public Policy to net a game-high 18 points.
"It's not one of my favorites, so I'm pretty happy about that," Egee said.
But while all of the Red and Blue dished aside their other commitments to accommodate the bizarre 10 a.m. start time, many showed up in name only. Technically, the Quakers jumped out to the game's first lead - 1-0, on a Jack Eggleston free throw- but they never found themselves ahead again. (Penn pulled even at 44 halfway through the second, only for Drexel to go on a 9-1 run.)
The Dragons were more physical, dictating the pace and controlling the battle on the glass. And from Eggleston's miss to Rosen's, Penn struggled miserably from the line, sinking just 13 of 28.
"If we just got a few of them to drop . ," Egee mused. "It comes down to mental focus. We didn't have it the whole game."
