Getting up for the game

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The Quakers are fortunate Monday's Fordham disappointment happened in the Bronx rather than at the Palestra. For at the end of the season, losses at home hurt much more than losses on the road in the RPI (Penn is currently sitting at 94, down from a high of 32 earlier this year) and the eyes of the NCAA selection committee. This, of course, is if Penn can make it that far.

It's also lucky both the RPI and selection committee are blind to how lackadaisical the Quakers played the final 30 minutes Monday night. Bad turnovers, bad shot selection and a whole lot of bad possessions in general led to what looks like an embarrassment compared to the rest of Penn's record so far. It was clear from the start there was a lack of energy.

But don't dismiss this as some side effect of the fact that it was a road game. After watching both of Penn's games in Hawaii over the break, I can say the trip isn't half the problem.

Take for example the Hawaii game. As I noted here, Penn clearly had the upper hand in intensity out of the gate, and that early stretch was what sealed the win in the end. It also didn't hurt that there were about 8,000 screaming fans in the seats.

Contrast that with the effort given two nights later against BYU-Hawaii. Penn struggled against a clearly overmatched opponent and actually fell behind by as much as six in the second half.

The difference? It wasn't a big game. It was a nobody opponent. And most importantly, there was nobody in the seats. In total there were about 150 people at the game, and half were Penn fans. There was no energy in the arena built for 4,500. It was almost as if the team didn't show up, and had they not been that much taller and that much faster they would have lost.

This is not an acute phenomenon. It happens all the time, and it will happen again this year at Dartmouth and at Brown to name a few. I'm not going to speak to the win at the Citadel because I wasn't there, but Penn always plays good teams well (see Duke and Villanova) and bad teams horrendously (see Siena and last year against Rider).

A lot of it has to do with the crowd being into the game, and the players feeding off that energy. Several of them have told me as much after beating Hawaii. How quickly the hangover from flying 5,000 miles disappears when you are in an arena that is as loud as a full Palestra.

But there will be plenty of nights were that energy isn't there, and the coaching staff has to step in. Monday was one of those nights, because for as many Penn fans as were in attendance, even the home crowd was fairly complacent for most of the game. So too, was the team.