Why this was more than a Big 5 win

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About one year ago, Penn handily defeated Dartmouth at the Palestra on a Friday night to improve to 3-0 in the Ivy League — the Quakers were starting to make a little noise at just the right time; a talented Harvard team was on its way down I-95 to play Penn in a must-win game for Penn the next night.

That Saturday Harvard game was receiving quite a bit of hype on campus. "Tomorrow night is going to be packed," Zack Rosen said at the time, perhaps a little hard to believe given the box score from that Friday win over the Big Green read "attendance: 3,124" (and having been there, even that's a stretch).

As he was heading out of the gym, Rosen mentioned to me how important Saturday's Harvard game would be. Of course, it would be crucial for his title hopes. But the point guard — always an ambassador for the Penn basketball program to the campus at large — was thinking a little bigger. With students packing into the gym like they had rarely done in his career, he knew he had a shot to hook them. He knew they would come back if they saw a win.

What they saw Saturday night was everything but a win. It was easily the best basketball game I've seen at the Palestra: a double overtime thriller for the ages — and, yes, a packed crowd — but in the end, a win for the Crimson. Perhaps some casual fans appreciated the game they had just seen, but it wasn't the win Rosen knew he would need to begin cementing Penn basketball back in campus culture.

This Saturday night, for the first time since that Harvard game, there was that same hype on campus as Penn hosted St. Joe's. Students who had never been to a Penn basketball game were planning their Saturday night around it — and some weren't even able to get tickets as the game sold out.

And this time, in front of 8,722 spectators — as many as she could hold — Penn came away with an exciting victory.

The Quakers could care less what the official attendance was. They'd still play the game in front of no one. But down the line, this game may serve as a milepost for the basketball program as it rebuilds its reputation not only on campus, but in Philadelphia as well. This was, after all, an upset of a very good St. Joseph's team.

Credit is due to the Penn Athletics marketing staff that convinced the student body that this was a game worth seeing. It's impossible to know whether free white t-shirts or Zack Rosen and Tyler Bernardini handing out swag along Locust Walk actually put students in the seats, but they don't hurt — and for too long the administration did very little, expecting students to come as they used to.

And, of course, credit is due to the team, which took advantage of packed house, and likely finally hooked a few more students who wouldn't otherwise be back at the Palestra any time soon. And maybe those who were shut out of the Palestra when the tickets sold out won't wait so long to secure their seats for Princeton.