Penn-Princeton game updates

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PRINCETON, N.J. -- Follow the game live by continuously updating this page!

Final: Princeton wins 60-59. Conway hit a layup with three seconds remaining. Whitehurst airballed a three to win it at the buzzer. Tough loss for Penn. The team came all the way back and was up two possessions late in overtime. In the end, however, they could not overcome that horrible first half. That doomed Penn not just in this game, but now likely in their seeding for the NCAA Tournament as well. Not good, not good at all.

:9 (overtime): Penn leads 59-58. Princeton has the ball. Jaaber only made one of his two foul shots, setting up a potential game winner for the Tigers.

:20 (overtime): The game is tied at 58. Penn has the ball with 14 seconds on the shotclock after this timeout. Interesting call to use the timeout here. That's Penn's only one of the overtime period.

:49 (overtime): Penn leads 58-56. Princeton has the ball after this timeout. Whatever they do, the Quakers cannot give up a three here. That would set the Tigers on fire.

1:38 (overtime): Penn leads 58-54. Kuchinski has been great in overtime. Making a big layup and grabbing a huge board. Remember, this is a guy who had to walk onto the team earlier this year.

4:02 (overtime): Penn leads 56-53. Grandieri just hit a huge and-1, giving Penn the lead. Credit Ebede. He may not be playing but he is the most vocal guy on the entire Penn team. He is cheering from his knees on the sideline.

End of regulation: We're headed to overtime. Greenman's shot rattled out and we now have five more minutes to play. Just to recap -- Penn was down three points with 37 seconds to play. Penn stole the ball and Jaaber made a layup to cut the score to 49-48. Danley then fouled Savage, fouling out of the game. Greg Kuchinski replaced him. Savage made only one of his foul shots, making the score 50-48. Jaaber was fouled on the next possession, setting up the two free throws. He made both, tying the game at 50. Princeton was unable to score as time expired.

:17 (second half): The game is tied at 50! Jaaber made both clutch free throws. Princeton has the ball with a shot to win it after this timeout.

:37 (second half): Princeton leads 49-46. Penn got the basket, an acrobatic shot from Jaaber. Now they need a steal or a quick foul.

:44 (second half): Princeton leads 47-41. Penn gets a stop, as Osmundson stole the ball from Greenman and called a timeout. They need a basket here -- and quick.

1:12 (second half): Princeton leads 49-44. Penn needs to get a couple of stops here.

2:18 (second half): Princeton leads 47-41. Things don't look good for Penn. Owings hit a shot as the shot clock expired (he questionably got it off) and then drew an offensive foul call on the other end. Penn must get a stop here or they are pretty much finished.

3:25 (second half): Princeton leads 45-40. Jaaber was fouled on a three and will shoot his shots after this media timeout. Princeton has been much better against the press this year. They have not turned the ball over like they did with frequency last year. WAIT... the refs reviewed the play and now Jaaber will just shoot two.

4:40 (second half): Princeton leads 43-38. Penn now has 10 fouls, putting Princeton in the double bonus. Osmundson missed a layup that would have tied the game, then Princeton turned around and hit a three wit the shotclock expiring. That may have been the game.

7:17 (second half): Princeton leads 40-46. Zoller has fouled out, recording a silly foul as Owings drove to the basket and made a layup. Whitehurst will replace him in the lineup, although he also has four fouls. On a better note, Jaaber hit Penn's first three of the game and scored his 1,00th career point.

8:01 (second half): Princeton leads 38-33. Zoller was just called for his fourth foul. Dunphy keeps him in the game. This could be dangerous. Penn already has seven team fouls.

8:38 (second half): Princeton leads 36-31. Technical foul on Scott Greenman. It seems as if he has mouthed off to the refs.

9:01 (second half): Princeton leads 36-31. Holy cow! Jaaber just hit a nice and-1 (missing the free throw), as Owings has recorded his fourth foul. Here comes Penn!

10:49 (second half): Princeton leads 36-29. Penn is on a 13-2 run and they are now employing the full court press. That defense certainly helped them come back last year against Princeton at the Palestra. The problem is that this is an exhausting defense to play with only six men in the rotation.

11:51 (second half): Princeton leads 36-26. Penn has cut the lead to ten, and they have the opportunity to if Jaaber hits his and-1 free throw coming up. Jaaber, by the way, is just nine points away from his 1,000th career point with the Quakers.

12:29 (second half): Princeton leads 36-24. It's worth noting that Friedrich Ebede is not playing tonight. Apparently he is still hampered by a groin injury. That means Penn is going with its six man rotation again tonight.

13:47 (second half): Princeton leads 36-22. Penn has eclipsed the 21-point mark. Good for them. The team is looking better on the offensive end. On the defensive end, they are pretty streaky but Danley has two nice blocks already. One was on an Owings backdoor layup attempt. Princeton is still shooting 50 percent from three. Penn? Well they're shooting 0-for-6 from beyond the arc. Thanks to ace Penn statistician Stu Stuss, who has fed me some nice stats all game. Also -- Tim Flynn has kept the information coming. He noted that Onyekwe is "tearing it up" for Bnei Hasharon in the Israeli league. We have an interview with Ugonna that we'll post later tonight.

Halftime: Princeton leads 28-12. Well, the only good thing to happen is that Penn pulled ahead of Princeton's 21-point pace. Besides that, Penn deserves to lose this game and get a 15-seed in the NCAA Tournament. There are few good things you can say about this team of late. Fran Dunphy better get his team in shape... and fast.

A few more celebrity sightings -- the best player I've ever seen in a Penn uniform, Ugonna Onyekwe, is in the audience tonight. Also, Gary Walters -- Princeton's athletic director and a member of the NCAA Tournament selection committee -- is also in the house, sporting a Final Four vest. What a great guy to stink it up in front of.

A correction -- Tim Flynn, a member of the Penn athletic communications staff, pointed out that Yasser El-Halaby was actually not undefeated in collegiate play. He simply did not lose in championship play. Thanks for keeping me honest Tim!

1:22 (first half): Princeton leads 26-10. Awful, awful, awful. Penn looks absolutely horrible in this game. What happened to the Quakers team that used to win Ivy League games with ease? Even likely Ivy Player of the Year Jaaber has been terrible. He has missed all three of his layup attempts and has no points. At this point, Penn is going to beat Princeton's record for the fewest points in a game (21).

3:48 (first half): Princeton leads 20-10. There are a few celebrities in the audience tonight. The biggest is Bill Cowher, who came to see his daughter play in the Penn-Princeton women's game earlier tonight. Meagan was named player of the game, scoring 20 points. The public address announcer also just recognized another sports star, Princeton squash phenom Yasser El-Halaby, who is in the crowd. El-Halaby is probably the greatest player in collegiate squash history. He won four straight national titles at Princeton.

3:59 (first half): Princeton leads 20-10. Zoller seems to be the only Penn player who has come to play today, and even he hasn't been great. The junior forward has seven of the team's 10 points, but also has two turnovers. Every other player on this team has been flat at best on offense.

7:48 (first half): Princeton leads 15-8. Princeton has been hot from three tonight. They are 3-for-6 so far from beyond the arc.

11:27 (first half): Princeton leads 10-3. Well Penn got its first field goal of the game, a Zoller layup. Still, this team looks absolutely awful. Don't expect them to win (or get a No. 14 seed in the NCAA Tournament for that matter) if they keep this up.

13:20 (first half): Princeton leads 5-1. Penn got on the board with Brian Grandieri foul shot. Still, Penn looks awful on offense tonight. They have no type of flow and they can't get an open look.

15:40 (first half): Princeton leads 3-0. Penn has looked pretty awful against this 2-3 matchup zone (surprise, surprise). The Quakers have only taken three shots in the game, two of which have been bad three-pointers. A quick aside -- Penn has unveiled a new version of the new-look mascot. The face is not as troll like and the mouth is all white. It's a much better costume.

Pregame: The arena is about 60 percent full, and it's hard to tell the ratio of Penn to Princeton fans. One thing's for sure, there sure aren't a lot of Princeton students at this game. It's sad, because you could be sure that the Palestra would still be full of students even if Penn was in a similar situation. After all, this is one of the greatest rivalries in college basketball.

Starting lineups:

Princeton
F Justin Conway (6-4, Jr, 11 ppg)
F Luke Owings (6-6, Jr, 8.5 ppg)
F Kyle Koncz (6-7, So, 7.5 ppg)
F Noah Savage (6-5, So, 10 ppg)
G Scott Greenman (5-9, Sr, 11 ppg)

Penn
G Ibrahim Jaaber (6-2, Jr, 18.1 ppg)
G David Whitehurst (6-3, So, 5.9 ppg)
G Eric Osmundson (6-5, Sr, 10.2 ppg)
F Steve Danley (6-8, Jr, 9.3 ppg)
F Mark Zoller (6-7, Jr, 12.7 ppg)