Reactions from the Dartmouth game

An ugly game for Penn, which simply did not have the right energy from start to finish to beat an obviously improved Dartmouth team last night at the Palestra. Penn's only defense is that it played Friday night and Saturday night on the road, practiced Sunday and Monday, went to Princeton on Tuesday night after class, had off Wednesday (mandatory day off), practiced Thursday, and then a fresher Dartmouth team faced them one night later. It's not an excuse for what was a total off night for this team, especially coming off of three wins, but perhaps it is an explanation.

For more analysis, continue reading after the jump.

The key storyline here was the Quakers' complete ineptitude around the basket, coupled with the tremendous presence of Alex Barnett on both sides of the court. There were countless missed layups by forwards and guards alike for Penn, while Dartmouth managed to record nine blocks on the night. Cam Lewis had a nice game on the boards, but also showed again how raw he is around the basket, committing five turnovers. The Quakers had plenty of open looks inside and shunned the three-ball for almost the entire game. Many more baskets should have fallen, but clearly Penn just didn't have the energy or skill to finish off those open looks inside against strong defenders in Barnett and even Elgin Fitzgerald, who played nicely for the Big Green off the bench.

Barnett was an absolute beast tonight, dropping a game-high 20 points and recording 4 blocked shots. His presence alone was enough to thwart many more opportunities for Penn offensively, and he came up with a few very key assists as well. Barnett makes his teammates much better players. As Miller noted after the game, he is clearly a first-team All-Ivy player, and the type of person that you really can run a successful team around. There is no question that he is an elite player at this level.

Penn also suffered from some untimely missed free-throws, and every time the Quakers mounted a comeback, Dartmouth had an answer. Credit definitely goes out to Terry Dunn, who has done a great job turning that program around. He coached his team very well tonight -- his players were very well disciplined in what was a tightly-officiated game. They got out to the early lead and never allowed Penn to knock them out of the driver's seat.

A few other thoughts...

I really do think that a fresher Penn team wins this game. The Quakers just didn't have it at all tonight, but still managed to keep the game close throughout. Dartmouth also hit some pretty lucky shots, or at least shots that wouldn't normally go in. I don't mean to take anything away from how well the team played, but there were a few "bad" shots that managed to find their way into the basket. Case and point: the Big Green's first bucket came on an NBA-range three from Barnett as the shot clock was expiring. There were several baskets of similar difficulty that fell for them throughout the night. You have to chalk that up to skill as well, no question about it. But when it comes down to it, Penn had many more quality scoring opportunities tonight, and it outrebounded Dartmouth as well. The Quakers were just very rough when it came to finishing around the basket. The gameplan was there, the execution was not.

Not that this is in any way newsworthy, since it's really the case almost every weekend, but the officiating tonight was very bad. At the very least, there was a pattern to it -- excessive whistleblowing on both ends of the court. In addition to that, the refs definitely botched a couple of out-of-bounds calls. I won't say whether the calls favored one team more than the other; it was hard to tell. But the officiating was noticeably bad.

Jack Eggleston's offensive woes continued, as he went 2-for-9 from the field. But one of those baskets, a three-pointer late in the game to keep Penn in it, should be a nice pick-me-up for him going forward. The basket didn't wind up mattering in terms of the game, but it was a very big shot at the time. Eggleston needs to regain confidence in his shot, and a big three in a tight spot can go along way towards helping him.

Zack Rosen, despite some poor play early on in the first half -- including an inexplicable brick by the lefty on a layup with the right hand -- was extremely good for the majority of the game. He really demonstrated his quickness, going coast-to-coast on scoring drives several times, in which he beat half of the Dartmouth team down the floor, including Jabari Trotter and Barnett. He also had several nice dishes to set up baskets for Penn. Very strong play overall from the freshman, who continues to get better as the season progresses.

With all of the emphasis on taking it inside, Rob Belcore saw very limited action tonight. He is Penn's most reliable three-point shooter in my opinion, but when Penn is constantly trying to pound the ball inside, his role is naturally reduced. In his place, Kevin Egee did not have a good game offensively, but his defense was solid. He hustled very well and set the tone for the Quakers defensively, and he proved very versatile as well. He even got a few nice stops against a bigger and stronger player in Barnett.

Finally, tonight's game really demonstrated Penn's greatest weakness, which is inside presence. It's been Penn's achilles' heel all season long, and we've seen the playing time of Lewis and Brennan Votel seesaw quite a bit throughout the season. At the end of the day, Lewis gives you better defense and rebounding ability, while Votel gives you a more versatile and dependable offensive threat. Neither give you the full package, which Penn really needed tonight against Barnett and Dartmouth, especially with Eggleston still on the fritz.

Let's see how Penn responds tonight against Harvard, which is coming off a very close, three-point loss to Princeton. And just an FYI: gametime tomorrow is at 6 pm, not the normal 7.