M. Hoops | Quakers want to tire out Mullery

As the Quakers prepare to take on Brown tomorrow night, freshman point guard Zack Rosen finds himself in a familiar position.

As a high school senior at St. Benedict's Prep (N.J.), Rosen and his varsity team didn't participate in the New Jersey state tournament. Instead, he said its focus was on securing the No. 1 national ranking at season's end.

However, a mid-season loss to No. 2 St. Patrick's dashed the team's hopes of claiming the top spot.

"Basically the season was a flop, but we had six games left and they weren't against crappy teams," Rosen said. "We had to go out there and win six games, which we did."

The Quakers (8-15, 4-5 Ivy) will only have four remaining when they face Brown (7-17, 1-9) at the Palestra, but with the team essentially out of the running for the automatic NCAA tournament bid - they technically can win the bid if they win out, Cornell loses out, they get help and then they beat Cornell in a playoff - Rosen will draw inspiration from his high school days to help the Red and Blue mimic St. Benedict's season.

If Penn doesn't notch its first conference win at home against Yale tonight, the Quakers might have a better shot tomorrow against a Bears team with only one Ivy win to its name entering this weekend.

Some of Brown's losses have been pretty bad - a 40-point shellacking at the hands of Cornell last weekend comes to mind - and the Quakers handled the Bears easily during their visit to Providence two weeks ago, winning 73-52.

"We have a lot of holes to fill if we expect to give Penn a good game," first-year Brown coach Jesse Agel said.

But the Quakers have had problems matching up against strong big men in the post, which makes junior forward Matt Mullery an important player to watch.

"When you're playing a great scorer like he is, you've got to go at him from both ends," Penn forward Jack Eggleston said. "You need the guards pressuring the ball from the perimeter so that they have a tougher time passing it in . and then the bigs fronting it."

Mullery leads Brown with 16 points and grabs 5.8 rebounds per game - good for second on the team behind Chris Skrelja's 6.5 - but he was limited in his last outing against the Quakers after getting into foul trouble.

Eggleston attributed that performance to Penn senior Cam Lewis' tough defense and said a key tomorrow will be just tiring out Mullery. He also affects games at the defensive end, setting a Brown record for the most blocked shots in a season against Columbia a week ago. He currently has 44 on the season, which averages out to 1.8 per game.

Last weekend the Bears missed the services of senior forward Scott Friske, who sat out both games after contracting mononucleosis. Agel, who already runs a tight rotation, said Friske may not play again this weekend and could even be sidelined for the rest of the season.

"We haven't been able to have our bench come in and give us positive minutes on any consistent type of basis. So having him be out hurt us greatly," Agel said.

Penn coach Glen Miller says he has no plans to tinker with the lineup and will keep his seniors on the court for these last games "as long as they give the effort that I want them to give."

They could look toward Rosen - he might have a few tips for how to play through the remainder of these insignificant games.

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