Game 28: Harvard — The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

The Good: A comeback win against a quality opponent. Penn has played to its competition all year. It has had close losses against teams that are good, but beatable (ie Temple) and they play poorly against teams they should crush (ie Dartmouth). Today, however, the Quakers played poorly, especially in the first half, but still managed to pull off a victory. The win says a lot about their character and hopefully they can carry this momentum to the end of the season.

Also Good: Zack Rosen. The man can straight-up play. It might be beating a dead horse by this point, but he really carried the Quakers offense this weekend. Rosen, struggled from the field, only shooting 6-for-14, but with the game on the line he demanded the ball and he delivered.

Also Good Pt. 2: This will go along with the bad (see fouls), but the Quakers played solid defense all game long. The numbers won't reflect it, but Rob Belcore was guarding Kyle Casey or Steve Moundou-Missi the entire night, giving up almost 50 pounds to Casey. Henry Brooks and Fran Dougherty were active and disruptive all game and even collected a couple of blocks each.

The Bad: Inability to create offense. Penn could only score 22 points in the first half. They left runners hanging, they were sloppy with their shot selection, and they missed wide-open looks. The Red and Blue played much better in the second half, but still need to find a way to make up Tyler Bernardini's missing production.

The Ugly: Fouls. Penn committed eight fouls in the first half and 12 in the second. The problem was the Quakers committed many of the fouls early and often. In the second half, the Crimson were in the bonus midway through the period. Both guard Steve Rennard and forward Henry Brooks, fouled out. Harvard shot 26 free throws for the entire game, dwarfing Penn's 11 free-throw attempts. (Note: Penn hit 11 of their 12 FTs; Harvard hit 20 of 26)