There's that old sinking feeling again.
Desperate to notch its second win of the season against a perennially mediocre Navy squad, Penn was dominated on both ends of the floor en route to a 76-65 loss at the Palestra on Friday.
After losses to Albany and Villanova in their last two contests, the Quakers put forth another underwhelming effort. Despite the Midshipmen's perennially-undersized roster and four-guard sets, Penn was outrebounded. Despite coach Glen Miller's attempts to get out in transition, the Quakers were outrun. So ultimately, despite Navy's futility at the Palestra, it came away with the victory - ending a drought of 49 years to the day.
"The cheesesteak is going to taste a lot better on that bus ride back to Annapolis than it did the last time we were in here," Navy coach Billy Lange said.
The Quakers, on the other hand, are going to want to cleanse their palate.
The Red and Blue were called for 28 fouls in the game, and couldn't get anything going on either end of the floor. Hounded by Navy's Kaleo Kina, sophomore guard Tyler Bernardini shot just 2 of 12 from the field and netted just six points, his season-low. But while he felt he was being keyed in on, Bernardini chalked up his performance to a simple off-night.
"I was open," he said, "and I missed a lot of shots."
This season, the recurring theme has been simple: as Bernardini goes, so goes Penn. It was no different this weekend, when the Quakers were relatively stagnant on offense. They shot a solid 43.6 percent from the field, but that effort couldn't compete with Navy's attack.
The Midshipmen converted on 22 of 27 free throws, and made a habit of finishing their dribble-drives strong. Kina paced the Midshipmen, pouring in 28 points on 9-18 shooting, penetrating Penn's man-to-man and zone defenses at will.
The junior was buoyed by sharpshooting guard Chris Harris, who drained three three-pointers on the way to an 18-point night.
According to Miller, Navy was able to turn broken plays into points.
"They did a great job of making plays," he said. "They'd just space the floor and they had guys that made plays off the dribble."
While the Midshipmen are known for being undersized due to the Naval Academy's height restrictions - seven-footers have been sparse since David Robinson was in Annapolis - the Quakers were unable to carve out a presence in the paint.
Forwards Brennan Votel and Jack Eggleston led Penn in scoring (with 14 and 13 points, respectively) and played productive minutes, but it is becoming apparent that there is a distinct lack of depth in the frontcourt.
Forward Andreas Schreiber, who is stilProxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0
recovering from a torn labrum, was ineffective in his brief appearance ("He really doesn't know what he's doing," Miller said), and Cameron Lewis did not see action yet again. Freshman Larry Loughery played 11 minutes, but has not rounded out into an offensive presence yet.
This meant that the pressure remained on Bernardini and Penn's guards. It was a situation that came back to haunt them - the Quakers finished just 5-for-16 from beyond the arc.
"We've got some inconsistencies at the big man position," Votel said.
Less than a month into the season, this feeling of "inconsistencies" is starting to ring truer and truer in all phases of the game for Penn. With a three-week break ahead of them, the Quakers have their work cut out for them.
