Penn on high horse to New Jersey

After the Penn men’s basketball team plays against Army at the Meadowlands at noon on Saturday, No. 1 Duke will suit up against Butler in the rematch from last year’s NCAA championship.

But the Quakers (3-3) have no definite plans to stay to watch the headliner and will likely be on the bus back to Philadelphia.

“We’re worried about playing and just being ready at twelve o’clock,” coach Jerome Allen said.

The Red and Blue must focus on the task at hand: playing a full forty minutes of basketball against disciplined Army (4-3).

And finishing games is something that Penn has struggled with thus far. The Quakers allowed 17 unanswered points in the final eight minutes of a 59-54 loss to Manhattan and failed to score a field goal in the final 12 minutes of Tuesday’s 71-59 victory over UMBC.

“We lost our offensive and defensive principles a little bit in the last eight minutes,” senior forward Jack Eggleston said. “Other than that, I felt we’ve done a pretty good job putting together a consistent effort.”

But the Quakers will not be the only team at the IZOD Center Saturday to have given up a late-game lead. Army, whose next seven games are away, succumbed to a 14-2 second-half Yale run in its 79-87 loss Saturday.

If history does repeat itself, fans trickling in early for the title game may witness the same.

In addition to executing a 40-minute game plan, the Quakers must defend the Black Knights from three-point land.

Army has scored 42 percent of its points from beyond the arc, led by junior guard Julian Simmons, who has hit 19 treys so far this season.

“That’s their strong point,” Eggleston said. “If we can limit their good looks from deep and make them shoot contested threes, we’ve got a good chance of being successful.”

As the Quakers try to defend the three-point line, their relative size advantage will likely work in their favor. The tallest Black Knight to record minutes this year, 6-foot-6 forward Jordan Springer, averages 20 minutes and just two points per game.

And with Allen experimenting with different lineups — finding the most success with smaller players like freshmen Miles Cartwright and Fran Dougherty in favor of taller seniors Tyler Bernardini and Andreas Schreiber — the Quakers should still be able to score points and grab boards.

It is important not to discount the Black Knights, however, as they average 36 rebounds per game to Penn’s 26.

But Allen’s strategy of playing solid, athletic defense stays the same no matter who the opponent is or what type of players the Red and Blue are up against.

“We try not to allow teams to dictate to us our style of play,” Allen said.

But as a service academy — the school that trained Duke coach Mike Kryzewski — the Black Knights are known to play both a physical and disciplined game.

To counter, the Quakers will “try to be just as disciplined, if not even more,” Allen said.

“We have respect for each and every opponent,” he said. “We fear no one.”

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