Game 2 - Temple: The Good, Bad and Ugly

What a game that was last night. There are so many plays I could point to as critical to the outcome, and they're all still running through my head. I'm sure the diehard fans, and the Penn players and staff, are doing the same thing. At the least, we can all finally say we witnessed Penn play in a Big 5 classic. Let's break down an unforgettable night:

The Good: There's no doubt about this one. First, the fire Penn showed was evident from the outset. It wasn't just impressive that the Quakers jumped out to an early lead; it was the way they did it. From tip-off to buzzer, you couldn't tell which was the Atlantic-10 team coming off an NCAA tournament win and which was the Ivy League team that finished in the middle of the pack last season. As point guard Zack Rosen said afterward, every single player in that locker room believed they could win the game, and it translated to tremendous energy and effort.

And speaking of Rosen, what more can you say about this kid? Entering the season, I thought about how badly Zack wanted it last year and how this year, with his final shot at a Big 5 splash and an Ivy title before him, we could witness something incredible. Performances like Monday night's were what I had in mind. He just has an insatiable will to win that allows him to knock down impossible shot after impossible shot to keep his team in the game. It's a privilege to watch him play.

The Bad: Jerome Allen always preaches that winning takes a 40-minute effort, and his team fell just short of that goal. Were it not for a 14-0 Temple run that Penn allowed in the final 10 minutes of the first half, we'd be talking about a monumental victory for this program. This also goes to another poor shooting performance from the Quakers' go-to wing scorers, Tyler Bernardini and Miles Cartwright (7-22, 0-6). Bernardini can't find his stroke, and Cartwright looks hobbled by a nasty ankle injury. Allen admitted afterward that he needs to find ways to generate offense for players besides Rosen, who was iso'd throughout the stretch run.

The Ugly: Temple deserved to win the game after hitting clutch shot after clutch shot from multiple difference-making performers. But this game deserved a better ending than an inexplicable officiating controversy. How can you call an intentional foul on incidental contact in a two-point game with seven seconds left? How can you call a technical that killed any chance Penn had at winning? Even before that, who calls a carry (on Owls guard Juan Fernandez) in a tie game with 17 seconds left? The refs played a role in the outcome of this game, and that should never be the case, especially when the rest of the game was a beautiful as this one.