Jack Eggleston: Quakers' loss to La Salle not a surprise

The result of the game last night should not have been much of a surprise. Maybe you could be surprised by Rosen being held to single digits or Fran having a career night, but the final score was about what should have been expected. Although the Quakers did not play their best and certainly could beat this LaSalle team on a given night, the Explorers are simply a better team.

Coming in we knew this would be a battle of the backcourts. Neither team has a truly established presence down low. The Explorers clearly decided that they would take their chances with the Penn bigs to make sure they shut down the perimeter trio of Rosen, Bernardini, and Cartwright. As a result, Fran got free for many open looks inside.

Every time a Quaker guard drove baseline, the defensive big man rotated over to stop penetration. Interestingly, almost nobody ever rotated over to the newly unguarded Dougherty in the middle of the paint. One time somebody slid over to draw a charge on Fran and another time Miles made a shovel pass instead of a bounce pass that got stolen. Either LaSalle is a very bad defensive team incapable of making a second rotation or they consciously decided to stay home on the shooters. I think it was the latter.

If you take a quick glance at the results for this Quaker team through their first sixteen games, nothing really jumps out at you. They haven't pulled off any stunning upsets or had any glaring losses. According to Sagarin ratings, their best win is over number 93 Robert Morris and their worst loss is to number 240 James Madison, putting Penn almost squarely in the middle of Division I at 174. A lot of times consistency and ability to play to your true talent level is a good thing, but entering an Ivy season where they'll face one ranked team and a couple other solid ones, the Quakers will have to figure out a way to elevate their play.