Silcox | Statistics before storylines

Sportswriters, even more so than athletes, love to get caught up in a good storyline.

“If one man deserves to leave Penn with a Big 5 win, it’s Jack Eggleston,” wrote this newspaper and many others. If not literally, the sentiment was at least carried between the lines of every preview and recap of Saturday’s Penn-St. Joseph’s matchup.

And to the delight of those story-chasing sportswriters, Jack (oh yeah, and the rest of the senior class) got his much-deserved win over the Hawks.

But for a cold, calculating columnist like myself, the emotion elicited by a last chance at Big 5 victory wasn’t enough. There’s still many a statistic to be combed through.

Consistency — defensive consistency — is coach Jerome Allen’s eternal focus.

“Play solid defense and you’ll always give yourself a chance to win,” has been his mantra since day one. Just get stops.

Fueled by the adrenaline and desire of that Big 5 storyline, the Quakers finally achieved the consistency they have been seeking for half a season.

Defensively, they simply got stops. Penn tallied 25 defensive rebounds — third best for the team so far this season. It should come as no surprise that 14 of those were pulled down by Eggleston alone.

In the other ‘stops’ department, the Quakers took the Hawks for 10 steals, a season high for Penn.

Combined, the Red and Blue had 35 such stops — another season high — as they cruised to 13 points off of turnovers.

Offensively, it’s hard to measure consistency. As Allen often points out, sometimes the shots just don’t fall. Compounding that, it’s hard to consistently rate an opponent’s defensive presence.

But one column in the stat sheet gives a glimpse of the Quakers’ reliability on offense Saturday.

From the free-throw line, where the Quakers have been absolutely atrocious until this weekend, Penn was a perfect 15-for-15, with Zack Rosen hitting six and Tyler Bernardini hitting four.

If there’s one spot on the court where you must make your shots, it’s at the line, and Saturday was just the second time this season Penn eclipsed 80 percent free-throw shooting.

Add to that the return of Tyler Bernardini’s scoring touch, which hasn’t failed to net less than 17 points for the last five games, and Penn can finally count on a solid base of points.

But it’s not that easy.

The trick for the Quakers as the season wears on will be channeling the tenacity they had Saturday night — with hopes and dreams on the line — every Friday and Saturday night for the next six weeks. It’s not the Big 5 or anything, just the little old Ivy League.

You know, the conference that matters.

CALDER SILCOX is a junior science, technology and society major from Washington, D.C., and is Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is silcox@theDP.com.

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