Comeback slips away

Penn men’s basketball has dug itself out of so many double-digit holes that it almost seems like early deficits and late comebacks are inevitable.

After trailing by 15 Saturday, the Quakers characteristically worked their way back in the final seven minutes of the game, but the late surge wasn’t enough to overcome sharp-shooting Cornell. In front of nearly 7,000 fans at the Palestra, Penn lost, 74-72.

“I think that’s a sign of our maturity,” Cornell coach Bill Courtney said of his team’s ability to stay calm under pressure. “Earlier in the year we would have lost this ballgame.”

In addition to eliminating Penn from contention for its first Ivy League title since 2007, Courtney swept the Quakers in his first season as Big Red coach.

It took Penn (12-13, 6-5 Ivy) almost three minutes to put points on the board before freshman Miles Cartwright drained a corner three. The poor shooting would continue, as his team managed just 27 first-half points compared to 39 from Cornell (8-18, 4-8).

The shots were falling for the Big Red. In the first frame alone, six players contributed treys as they shot 58.3 percent from three. Penn, in contrast, shot just 25 percent from deep.

“We’ve got to guard people,” Penn coach Jerome Allen said. “We’re not going to win basketball games when the other team scores 40 points in the first half.”

Down 12 at the half, the Red and Blue came out of the locker room hot as they began to chip away at the deficit. The raucous Palestra crowd kept the momentum moving in Penn’s direction as the Quakers went on a four-minute 11-0 run and eventually took a one-point lead on a Cartwright layup with 1:14 remaining.

But the comeback, led by Zack Rosen, Tyler Bernardini and Cartwright, was missing one key ingredient: Jack Eggleston.

While the forward had often been left wide open beyond the arc during the first round of Ivy play, he was well guarded this time and couldn’t slip away from Cornell’s tough perimeter defense. Eggleston went 1-for-8 overall and missed both of his two shots from distance.

“[Defending Eggleston] was a big key for us,” Courtney said. “We didn’t want to allow him to ball screen and then pop back for an open look. That was really helpful for us to stay in his face.”

Down seven and ready for a late surge, Cartwright, who scored a game-high 23 points, hit three consecutive layups to cut Cornell’s lead to just one. Drew Ferry, who was 3-for-4 from beyond the arc, buried a three-pointer, but Rosen answered with a trey of his own. Cartwright’s layup gave the Quakers the lead.

But it wouldn’t last long.

With 16.9 seconds to go, Zack Rosen fed the ball to Eggleston for an open three. He missed and was forced to foul Cornell’s Chris Wroblewski, who made both shots.

Cartwright had a chance to tie up the game with 10 ticks left on the clock, but as he drove through the lane, Errick Peck made contact and forced the ball out of Cartwright’s hands for an out-of-bounds turnover.

“I got past him, and he kind of nudged me and blew me off my path,” Cartwright said of the play, on which no foul was called. “He did nudge me, but it was a physical game all night and a lot of things went [uncalled] … It was consistent the whole game.”

Bernardini fouled on the inbounds pass, and Jonathan Gray missed his second foul shot. Rosen grabbed the rebound and heaved in a three-pointer with five seconds remaining.

Bernardini had one final long shot to win the game at the buzzer, but it fell short.

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