2012 shooting guard Brendyn Taylor said after the Nike Extravaganza that Penn was recruiting him and had offered. The 6-foot-2 senior from Fairfax (Calif.) is also being recruited by Wyoming, UC Davis, Colorado and St. Mary's, according to Scott Sommer.
CaliHighSports.com lists him as the No. 17 player in its list of top 30 seniors. Scout.com gave him two stars and did not rank him in his position.
Florida-Kentucky. Georgetown-Syracuse. Baylor-Kansas. Duke-UNC. Harvard-Penn.
Yup, you read that right. Along with some of the biggest college basketball clashes of the season, the Penn-Harvard showdown Friday night at the Palestra was picked by Yahoo! Sports' Pat Forde as one of the 10 games to watch this week.
Forde calls the upcoming NCAA slate "the best week of the season," and says that the Ivy matchup matters because, "This should be the Crimson’s toughest remaining game in what seems like an inevitable coronation as Ivy League champion and dangerous NCAA opponent. But if Penn can pull the upset, it at least would make the rest of the league schedule more interesting."
Not so great? Forde picked the Crimson to beat the Quakers, 58-49. "The Crimson are not exactly Kentucky when it comes to athleticism, but they are significantly more athletic than the Quakers. Penn should have a hard time scoring," he wrote.
Another Ivy shoutout in the article: Forde lists Princeton's 75-73 triple overtime win over Florida State on Dec. 30 as one of the top five road upsets of the season.
Men’s fencing is on a bit of a roll, to say the least, and the unbeaten team owes no small amount of its success to junior sabre Evan Prochniak.
Last week, collegefencing360.com awarded him National Fencer of the Week, after he went 9-1 at the Penn State invitational and scored the winning point in the Quakers’ epic 14-13 victory over the then-No. 1 Nittany Lions.
That was before the Penn men trampled over all five of their opponents at the Eric Sollee Invitational this Saturday. Against NYU, its most talented opponent, Prochniak and the rest of the team’s sabre trio went undefeated.
The kid is good. How good? This year, he has fenced 25 matches against 10 different colleges. And of the those 25 bouts, he has lost two. In fencing, the first team to win 14 bouts gets the win. So far, Penn has gotten there easily, with three exceptions — Sacred Heart, Duke and then-No. 1 Penn State. (The last coaches’ poll came out Jan. 19, but, given that the Quakers are the only undefeated team in the country, the Red and Blue may be at the top of that list when it comes out next.)
In other words, if Prochniak had lost a single extra bout in any of those matches, if he had not gone 2-1, 3-0, then 2-1, including his clutch battle with PSU freshman Sean Moran, the Quakers would not be 16-0. They would have a not-as-impressive 13-3 record. And the numbers don’t account for the leadership the two-time All-American and NCAA semifinalist provides as “a leading contender for the 2012 NCAA title,” as collegefencing360.com calls him.
Next week at the Ivy Championships, Prochniak and the rest of the men’s fencing squad will go up against the Princeton Tigers, ranked second in the most recent coaches’ poll. The team has five sabres — a freshman, three sophomores and one senior.
The Tigers’ sabre squad is competing well, but not Penn well. At the Northwestern Duals two weeks ago, the Princeton men’s fencing team lost its first two matches of the season. In both of those battles, they lost, 15-12, and in both of them, sabre made the difference, posting 3-6 records. The team has zero juniors who fence at the position. Four years ago, the head coach over in New Jersey would have been smart to snag Evan Prochniak.
Here is the text from collegefencing360.com:
University of Pennsylvania junior men's sabreist Evan Prochniak (Hudson, N.H.) – a leading contender for the 2012 NCAA title, after reaching the semifinals a year ago – has been named national fencer of the week for Jan. 23-29, 2012, as presented by CollegeFencing360.com (CF360). Prochniak leads the way among the six CF360 Primetime Performers of the Week for college fencing. Brown freshman men's foilist Barrett Weiss (Barrington, R.I.) has been selected by CF360 as the national rooke of the week.
Prochniak's 9-1 record at the Penn State Invitational led the way for the #7 Quakers men, now 11-0 for the season. The two-time All-American and 2011 NCAA semifinalist collected a pair of key wins in Penn's win over top-ranked PSU, including a 5-4 battle with All-American Adrian Bak and a 5-3 win over Sean Moran that produced the final 14-13 margin. Prochniak – who also went 2-0 vs. #8 Duke and suffered his only loss vs. three-time NCAA semifinalist Alex Ochocki (3-5) – now owns a 40-8 season record and is 87-15 in regular-season action during his three-year career with the Quakers.
It was a big deal when Yale quarterback Patrick Witt turned down the opportunity to interview for a Rhodes Scholarship to play in his final football game against Harvard. It was an even bigger deal when the New York Times last week alleged Witt never had the chance to turn down his interview — because his candidacy was put in question due to allegations of sexual assault.
Then, after the Times dropped that bombshell, there was quite a bit of fallout. Witt responded in a statement through his agency denying the Times' claims, and many were upset with the Times' use of completely anonymous sourcing. The book is hardly shut on this case, and we may never know exactly what happened, but the NYT's ombudsman looked into the story and reported on his findings today.
The full text of his story is fascinating and worth a read, but here is his conclusion, which at least provides a little more insight into the story:
Bottom line: I’m not in a position to dispute The Times’s finding, although I think the story was handicapped by not having Mr. Witt’s version of the timeline. I haven’t seen proof that Mr. Witt was no longer a contender when he bowed out.Update: For those interested in the details of this case, The Yale Daily News' Cross Campus blog has much more, including statements from Witt and the Rhodes Scholarship.Much clearer to me is that reporting a claim of sexual assault based on anonymous sourcing, without Mr. Witt’s and the woman’s side of it, was unfair to Mr. Witt. The Times thought it was a necessary part in its exposé of the feel-good sports story. But the impact of the “sexual assault” label on Mr. Witt is substantial and out of proportion for a case that went uninvestigated and unadjudicated.
Maybe you just can’t publish this story, not with the facts known now. If those involved in the case are more forthcoming later, or if the allegations are investigated more fully, then perhaps. But for now, the timeline and whether Yale had declined to re-endorse Mr. Witt are murky and unresolved — by me and certainly by what was presented in the Times article. Even more unknown are the details of the accusation of sexual assault.
This was a compelling story, and The Times was motivated to publish it. But when something as serious as a person’s reputation is at stake, it’s not enough to rely on anonymous sourcing, effectively saying “trust us.”
It's my night off of recap writing, so while instead of sitting at Press Row watching Brown's Josh Biber shoot hoops with his teammate and babies rolling around on the other end of the court while Jennifer and Alyssa write, I'll come up with my Good, Bad & Ugly.
THE GOOD: Getting back on track. The Quakers technically still have control of their own destiny after tonight's win. And we don't have to say how big Friday's game against the Crimson is. Of course, though, Rob Belcore says Friday's matchup represents "the sixth Ivy League game." Ok.
Also good: Rob Belcore. Beast mode. 17 points (tied for a career high) and 10 rebounds, plus three steals. He went 7-for-10 and 3-for-6 from 3.
THE BAD: Penn's defensive breakdown to open the second half. Brown's Andrew McCarthy got through traffic not once, not twice, but three times for easy buckets in a 1:14 span. Belcore called it "unacceptable" and coach Jerome Allen said his players let up on the gas a bit. In the scheme of the game, the letup didn't make much difference. But come Friday, those kinds of lapses will really hurt the Quakers.
THE UGLY: Brown's shooting. At one point, the Bears were shooting just 8-percent from three. They ended up at 20-percent from three (4-for-20) and 37.7-percent overall (20-for-53). And 4-for-7 from the charity stripe. No bueno.
After last night's loss to Yale, the Quakers sit at 3-1 in the Ivy League. But a win in Providence tonight could keep their chances of an Ivy title alive.
I'm here at Brown's Pizzitola Sports Center with Jennifer Scuteri and Alyssa Kress as our weekend continues.
It's great to see the Quaker out supporting the non-revenue sports, but this insanely awkward video (courtesy of the Penn Sports Network) of our beloved mascot at the Penn-Brown squash match today has us wishing he wasn't...
In case you were wondering, the Red and Blue beat Brown 7-2.
Hear how disappointed Jerome Allen was after Penn's 60-53 loss to Yale in New Haven, Conn.
Penn suffered its first Ivy loss of the season to Yale, 60-53, Friday night. With that, the Quakers ended their four-game winning streak and are now forced to get back on track in the Ancient Eight at Brown tomorrow.
As Alyssa waits the projected 2,346 minutes (not an exaggeration) for video of Jerome Allen’s press conference to load and as Jennifer continues (losing) her game of Hanging with Friends, we decided to make productive use of our time.
THE GOOD: Capitalizing on Turnovers. Granted, this was a little difficult for us to list as a positive for the Quakers. But we are optimistic people—and we settled on Penn’s ability to convert their turnovers into points. Yale had 17 turnovers and the Quakers were able to net 17 points as a result.
THE BAD: Shooting Percentage. While Allen harped on defensive play, it’s no secret that the Quakers struggled to sink their shots. Penn had a 37.9 shooting percentage and shot an astoundingly low 23.8 percent from behind the three-point line.
THE UGLY: The Final Minutes. Yale netted 10 unanswered points in the last five minutes of the game. At 4:57, the Quakers were up 53-50, but fell victim to some big momentum shifts in favor of Yale. Miles Cartwright’s missed a three pointer at 2:36, which set Greg Mangano up for his game-tying tres. With 1:23 remaining, Reggie Willhite stole the ball from Zack Rosen and teammate Michael Grace put the Bulldogs ahead for good, 55-53.
The Quakers are in New Haven, Conn. to take on the Bulldogs. Penn puts its undefeated Ivy record on the line in a game that has serious Ivy title implications.
Ask any Penn basketball player about the highly anticipated Harvard game next Friday night and they'll tell you one thing: We're focused on Yale.
But with the Quakers on the Connecticut-Rhode Island road swing this weekend, Penn Athletics is gearing up for what may (depending on this weekend's results) be the biggest Ivy game Penn has played in some time at the Palestra. If all goes according to the Quakers' plan, the Cathedral will host the meeting of two Ivy-unbeatens, one of which has sat in the ESPN Top-25 for some time now. And we all remember the last time a ranked Ivy team showed up at the Palestra.
So after a successful bid to get students to come out to see Penn-Princeton last Monday, Penn Athletics is looking to once again pack the Palestra for the Crimson. This email was sent out this morning advertising free tickets to students:
This is a great idea — raise some money for a good cause, inspire a little class rivalry and school spirit & get students down to the Palestra for a massively important game. But it's hard not to be reminded of Athletic Director Steve Bilsky's comments in the DP earlier this week about the necessity for giving tickets a price:
DP: Have you thought about getting rid of the price for student basketball tickets?Obviously, this promotion is not quite the scenario that Bilsky paints in the quote above, but Penn is giving away free student tickets — if only for one game. The Athletic Department has been successful in recent weeks with promoting the basketball program. We'll see how this experiment works out on Friday the 10th. Until then, there are still two games to be played.A lot of people have asked us that. I happen to think … that having a price puts value on it and actually improves attendance, rather than hurts it.
Anecdotally, if you’re in your dorm and it’s February and it’s a miserable night and all you have to do is walk in for free, you might not go.
Penn is at the same point it was last year. Sitting at 3-0, the Quakers can solidify its status as Harvard's biggest threat with a win at Yale and Brown.
We've known since Sept. 27 that St. Rita of Cascia's Tony Hicks would be playing for Jerome Allen next year. But now, we also know he will be joined by a classmate who intends to play for Al Bagnoli.
Max Kurucar, a 6-foot, 165-pound defensive back and punter, was one of the best players for the Mustangs' football team while recording six interceptions and 29 tackles last season.
He was a recipient of the National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Award and was named to the 2011 first team All-Conference in the Chicago Catholic League in both positions.
“The coaches are a lot fun,” Kurucar told the Southtown Star, a subsidiary of the Chicago Sun-Times. “It’s a nice campus. You can see the Philadelphia skyline from campus. It’s everything I was looking for. I’m excited for the challenges. It felt like the place for me.”
It's a bit of a slow news day, so I thought I would check in with freshman forward Greg Louis and see how his recovery from hip surgery was progressing.
The Philly Daily News reported Louis' surgery in early November and said he would be out "at least several months." Louis told me today his projected recovery time was four months, and he's "about three months in." He's progressed quite well — even a bit ahead of schedule — and "will be able to start running and playing basketball, to an extent, in about two weeks."
Still, as planned, Louis won't be gunning for any playing time this season. His intent is to use his eligibility for a fifth year (that'll be the 2015-16 season). "I'm a blessed individual," he said.
While the Florida native has been rehabbing from the injury at physical therapy, Louis has also been using his time to learn Penn's game, study the team and look up to his senior leaders. "I get a chance to take every bit of knowledge from Zack as I can — it's stupid not to — and Rob and Tyler, for that matter, and Mike," he said.
"The basketball's a lot different [in Florida]," Louis said. "The more athletic teams tend to dominate, but up here I was surprised to see those people that know the game like Zack [have success]."
The highly-touted freshman is certainly making the most out of an unfortunate situation. "I'm trying," he said. "It's been hard, and I feel for anyone that has had long injuries"
It was a great night to be a part of the Penn men's soccer team.
At the annual Philadelphia Soccer Six Awards Banquet held at the University City Sheraton, the Quakers came away with a trio of prizes.
The first went to senior midfielder Christian Barreiro who was named "Chris Jones" Player of the Year. Recently drafted by the New York Red Bulls in the MLS Supplemental Draft, the Maryland native led the team with goals and assists this year with seven apiece. He leaves Penn ranked in the top-5 in scoring in school history and a two-time first team All-Ivy standout.
But Barreiro wasn't the only one with a great night. Duke Lacroix was named a co-"William 'Bill' Wilkinson" Freshman of the Year. Lacroix was twice named Ivy League Rookie of the Week and was tied for second on the team with five goals.
Lastly, coach Rudy Fuller captured "Bill Harris" Coach of the Year for the seventh time in his career.
The Penn men’s lacrosse team has added a new assistant coach to its staff. Head coach Mike Murphy has hired Doug Knight to help coach the offense.
Knight currently works at The Haverford School, a private, all-boys college prep day school in Haverford, Pa. At the school, Knight is the Associate Director of Admission and Tuition Assistance, but he also served as an assistant coach for the lacrosse team, which was voted last year’s high school national champion.
Knight was a star lacrosse player at the University of Virginia from 1993-1997. During his illustrious career, Knight was a three time All-American from 1995-97 and National Player of the Year in 1996.
Following his collegiate career, Knight played professionally in Major League Lacrosse for the Boston Cannons and Philadelphia Barrage. Knight returned to UVA after his professional career, where he worked as an assistant coach for the 1999 national championship team.
Outside of lacrosse, Knight is already connected to the Penn community. He is currently enrolled in Penn's Masters of Education School Leadership Program and expects to graduate this May.
We ran a nice little graphic in today's print version of the DP, but we didn't have room to include all of the great responses we heard from students in attendance at Monday's Penn-Princeton game. We asked first-timers (many of which were seniors) why they went, what they though of the game, and if they'll be back for the Harvard game.
Jake Meiner, Freshman College Well it was, of course, the Penn-Princeton game, and I couldn’t imagine missing a game as exciting as a game against one of our archrivals. But all of my friends were going and it seemed like the best thing to do on a Monday night, was to go out and support the Quakers at the Palestra.
I thought it was absolutely so exciting. The second I got there I was swept up in all the energy and commotion going on in there in support of the Quakers. And just like everybody else I was screaming for Zack Rosen, and absolutely bleeding Red and Blue last night. It was a lot of fun.
Absolutely. Literally sitting at halftime, we all turned to each other and went, ‘alright, we all have to buy tickets now for the Harvard game!’ but yeah, now that we’ve all been sucked into Penn men’s basketball, there’s no turning back now.
Nitin Puri, Senior Engineering Honestly last night I was with Friars. It was a Friars event, so I decided to go and the Penn-Princeton rivalry also influenced my decision on going.
I thought the game was really, really exciting. It’s kind of sad that I hadn’t been to a basketball game before, because I’m a big basketball fan. I had a lot of fun watching them. I think Penn played pretty well, so it was fun.
Personally, I didn’t have a lot of friends always excited to go to Penn sports games, and I also didn’t feel like there was a lot of general campus hype to go to a sports game. So in the past I’ve been to a couple football games, and going to the basketball games .. also usually fell on nights that I wasn’t available in the past.
I think that there was more [hype], definitely. I think there was a lot more promotion going on for this game than for games in the past, but that could have just been because I had heard of it, so when I talked with other people it came up more. So I don’t know. I feel like yes, there was a little more hype.
I definitely do want to go back, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to the Harvard game just because of other time commitments on that night, but yeah I’m definitely trying to go to another basketball game — or several basketball games — before I graduate.
Thadeus Dowad, Senior College
I’ve always wanted to go to a game. But for me it was hard to wrangle my friends into going to one. Definitely having Friars who are not only interested in being together, but also because Zack and Tyler are on Friars, getting to see them as well and rooting them on personally was also very fun with a group of people. That definitely helped, but I’ve always had an interest in going to see a game — especially against Princeton. I think it definitely is still a Penn tradition, and seeing them do so well last night, and in a contentious game, was really fun. And the rivalry is definitely still alive.
It was intoxicating and it was electric, it was really phenomenal. Especially with the Red and Blue Crew there, and all the posters they brought, and the band. We were sitting across from them so we got to see everything they were doing. And it was great. The Palestra was pretty much full except for the corners, and having all those people there — and not just people, but students as well — definitely got me pumped up more than I think it would have if they weren’t there, for sure.
No, I think I would definitely go back to see them play, especially now that I’ve seen them play. You hear about, especially Zack and Tyler and some other players, you hear about them all the time. And because I’m friends with them as well, I would definitely, absolutely go back and see them. Even if I wasn’t friends with them, I think I still would, now that I’ve seen them play. They’re a fantastic team. And they make for- the games are great, I’ve only seen one so I don’t know if all of them are like that, but if they were I’d go back in a heartbeat. And I look forward to going back- I’m definitely going to go to the game against Harvard, I can’t wait for that.
Mark Nakahara, Senior College I enjoyed it. It was nice because in my past years here it’s been over break so it’s nice to be able to go to one where everyone is on campus. I just read about it in the paper and from my friends. One of my roomates said, ‘This should be a good game, you wanna go?’ and I said sure. It was a lot of fun. It reminds me when I went to game when I was visiting Penn when I was still in high school when were top of the Ivy League and it was a really good atmosphere. I’d like to [go to more games]. It seems like the team is putting together its first good season in a few years.
Eleanor Geise, Senior College
I’m a senior and I was hoping to finally be able to see Penn beat Princeton before I graduated. I was excited to see so many other students there. I think Zack Rosen’s a beast. I’d like to see more people going to other games. If more people went, it would be more fun. Yeah, I’m definitely going to go when we play Harvard. Hopefully we can beat them even though they’re like crazy good. If a lot of students started going to the games regularly, I ‘d start going more frequently because it’s not that fun to go to the games if there’s like 20 students there.
Brian Waweru, Freshman
The game was really exciting. I loved the energy and the stage. I think the Penn Basketball team really displayed some good basketball. That was my first Penn game and I chose to attend because of the hype that it had been advertised with on Locust. I think it was really the first game where I felt the need to go and support my team. It was a good feeling to be expecting the game one day and finally going the next. I really hope the entire Penn community can hype up basketball more. I don’t think games should be happening and having results, there should be a locust desk for every week and every game just to build a lot of hype on campus.
I loved the energy and the stage. I think it was really the first game where I felt the need to go and support my team. I really hope the entire Penn community can hype up basketball more.
I shot some footage of the final buzzer of last night's game. It's nice to see the good sportsmanship between the two teams, and of course, the streamers aren't bad either.
Last night was a big scoring night for Penn (they haven't scored this many points on Princeton since the 1970s), and especially for Zack Rosen. I spent most of the day with him for another piece I'm writing, and I tracked his shots during warmups before the game.
Without getting into the nitty gritty, I combined every shot that I saw (there were many more throughout the 40-minute routine) rather than splitting up FG, FT and 3-pt. By my count, he went 134-for-179: a .749 shooting percentage. Yeah, you could say he was feelin' it.
So it's fitting that Monday night was the night that he finally beat Princeton at the Palestra and surpassed his head coach in all-time points. Rosen's 28 bumped him ahead of Allen into Penn's No. 8 spot, while Tyler Bernardini's 14 points pushed him up to No. 12.
By my estimation, Rosen will probably finish No. 3 behind Ernie Beck and Ugonna Onyekwe. He's 147 points away from reaching that point, but would need another 118 to pass Onyekwe.
While the duo continues to steadily climb up the list, I'll be sure to keep you updated.
Here's what Penn coach Jerome Allen and senior Zack Rosen had to say after the Quakers' 82-67 victory over the Tigers:
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