Klitzman | Rollercoaster weekend in New England

Hanover, N.H., - Wow, what an exciting weekend.

In my five-plus semesters here at Penn, I have gone to all but two of the men's basketball Ivy League road games as part of the Penn Band.

And in no single weekend have two games been as close and intense as the two I witnessed this weekend in New England.

Although the results were a mixed bag - Friday's 66-60 win at Harvard was Penn's first over a higher-ranked team according to the Sagarin ratings this year, but Saturday's 63-60 loss at Dartmouth was the first to the Big Green since 1997 - both games went down to the wire.

Against Harvard, there were six ties and eight lead changes, with the largest lead (Harvard by seven) coming in the first half. In the final two minutes, the game's intensity skyrocketed. By this point the "Crimson Crazies," as the Harvard fans are called, finally decided to stand up and cheer, although they didn't live up to their name.

It was such a close game, in fact, that it's hard to tell which was the biggest play of the final two minutes - freshman Zack Rosen's four free throws, or his beautiful no-look pass to Jack Eggleston, who slammed home a dunk.

Or was it when Eggleston jumped out of bounds and called a timeout while saving the ball after a missed Penn foul shot? Perhaps the scramble for the ball following Penn's final timeout when senior Kevin Egee emerged with the rock? With no one between Egee and the basket, a Harvard defender on the ground reached up, grabbed Egee and was called for an intentional foul. Egee sunk both foul shots, effectively sealing the game.

"As big as Zack's free throws were, for Kevin Egee to have sat for a long period of time and come in and hit those free throws, those were just as big," Coach Glen Miller told reporters after the game.

Again, all of that in just under two minutes.

Meanwhile, Penn and Dartmouth scored just 14 points combined in the last 4:08 Saturday. (By comparison 12 points were scored in the last 1:07 of the Harvard game.)

Yet the last 37 seconds were still exciting, starting with a Penn foul shot that tied the game at 60. And while it didn't go Penn's way, the ensuing possession in which Dartmouth's Dan Biber converted a three-point play was clearly an emotionally charged moment.

There were other exciting moments against the Big Green. Senior Cam Lewis - who embarrassingly missed a wide-open breakaway dunk against Temple - threw down three dunks, and Eggleston added one.

Unfortunately, it's hard to take too many lessons from these close games. I thought the Harvard win was a sign that Penn could pull out close victories against good opponents.

But the Red and Blue failed to capitalize on a great victory when they couldn't finish off Dartmouth, whose RPI is eighth-worst in Division I.

The Big Green closed the game on a 15-4 run. In fact, Penn's last field goal came with 4:08 to play.

In a short span of 24 hours, the Quakers went from looking like a veteran team capable of winning close games in hostile environments to a team that couldn't hold a lead over one of D-I's worst.

I said the weekend was exciting - not perfect.

Zach Klitzman is a junior history major from Bethesda, Md., and is a Sports Editor for The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is klitzman@dailypennsylvanian.com

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