I was just forwarded this email that went out the Red and Blue Crew, which seems to be a fitting end to their careers as leaders in Penn basketball fandom. It's signed by "Magnum" and as you'll see, the author's contempt for Glen Miller is more than obvious. Enjoy:
Winning Isn't The Only ThingOde to the RBC seniors
Four-year home record: 23-31 (.425)Four-year Big 5 record: 1-11 (.083)
By any statistical measure, we've seen the most depressing four years at the Palestra since our hallowed gym opened. This observation is an obvious one to any senior over 54 home games, and goes far beyond a crappy W-L record (or a shitty coach who drove the team into the ground). Player transfers, coaching upheavals, a student section on life support, and paltry attendance at home all happened under our watch. At almost any other mid-major, this general apathy wouldn't be taken so seriously. But this is Penn. We expected greatness (or at least competence) when we first set foot in the Palestra as freshmen, and assumed the championships would come just as easily as they had for every other class. That didn't happen and the reasons for which are more plentiful than students at the Palestra on a Friday night game against Columbia.
Glen Miller, three sick Cornell teams, recruits not panning out, Glen Miller, tons of players leaving, missed Cam Lewis dunks, Glen Miller, an unfortunate rash of injuries, Glen Miller, heartwrenching OT losses this season, Glen Miller...
However, we will enter the Palestra one final time as RBC leaders with our spirits (somewhat) high, enjoying the end of our fourth Penn basketball season. In spite of all the losing and negativity, the seniors have discovered a unique feeling of camaraderie in agony and anticipation that sets us apart from every Red and Blue Crew that has come before us. From our first game against Drexel, to the ESPN game against UNC, to the times when it was just 10 people in the student section against the Dartmouths and Browns, to the RBC revival this season...we've seen all the adversity the team went through and are closer to the players and more passionate fans for it. No front-running Penn fan of the championship years can claim that bond.
We will celebrate our senior players tonight, and they deserve it. Jack, Conor, Andreas, and maybe Darren should not be discouraged over a lack of Ivy banners in the careers. We will remember them as strong leaders who pulled the team out of a horrible season and put them on track to contend next season.
But we should also celebrate everything that we have done for the Palestra over four years. There was a leadership vacuum in the Red and Blue Crew after freshman year, and we jumped in to rapidly transform and rebuild our student section. First, it was a risky (and ultimately "successful") FGM blog that paradoxically led to us getting a voice in Penn Athletics. Then, it was our willingness to make rollouts when no one else would (they got much better this year, btw). Most importantly, it was the amount of time and energy we put into bring the rest of campus back into the Palestra. It was a very difficult responsibility, and much work remains for our returning leaders. But I thank all of the seniors who volunteered to help create change, not expecting any recognition or compensation.
So let's enjoy one final game tonight! While we would have loved to win in our four years, maybe what we did off the court for the Red and Blue Crew has made our Palestra experience that much more memorable. I leave you with a line I found on an ESPN.com soccer article, but is eloquently applicable to our four years in the Palestra.
"There's a certain charm to supporting a minnow, dreaming of glory and relishing the cohesion among fellow supporters fostered by the collective agony of waiting for that utopia."
Fight on,
Magnum
P.S. Thanks to Pete for introducing me to Penn basketball freshman year.
Penn returned home after a grueling stretch of five straight road games with a quality win over Columbia. This one had a lot more "good" than the Quakers effort in New York, where they ran out of gas in the second half and fell, 75-62. To the GBU:
The Good: Rebounding proved to be the difference in this game, as Penn dominated the glass 41-33, including a whopping 15 offensive rebounds. It was a complete 180 from the game in NY, where Columbia won the rebounding battle, 34-18. But the best thing about this win was that the Quakers led wire-to-wire. Zack Rosen drilled a long three to open the scoring, and Penn never relinquished its lead. After getting outscored by the Lions in the second half 40-27 two weeks ago, the Quakers used a 7-0 run after the break to build a comfortable lead for the rest of the game. Finally, fans had a chance to leave this game with full fingernails and healthy hearts.
The Bad: The woeful first-half offense. The rims got a lot of action Friday night at the Palestra, to say the least. Fifty-two total shots went up in the half; just 16 found the bottom of the net. All told, Penn shot 27.6 percent in the first 20 minutes, while Columbia shot 34.8. That said, this point could also be considered a "Good" because the Quakers' defense was stifling all night, so once the shots started falling in the second half, they pulled ahead. Just how Jerome Allen drew it up - though that first half still featured some ugly offense.
The Ugly: Speaking of the "Ugly," I'm gonna go with the Princeton and Harvard results for all of you scoreboard-watchers out there. For much of the night, it appeared Penn would at the very least gain a game on Harvard - as the Crimson trailed by 11 at the half - and possibly Princeton, who nearly blew a lead to Cornell. Neither underdog helped out the Quakers, as each of the top three Ivy League teams ended up winning. An ugly night for "those still grasping at the last shreds of banner-hanging prospects," but one "Good" could have come out of the Princeton game: the Big Red may enter the Palestra with weak legs. Something to look out for tonight, as Penn plays Cornell, Princeton hosts Columbia and Harvard travels to Yale.
Just a quick update out of DeNunzio pool at Princeton: after two days of competition, Penn (596) is just four points behind third place Yale (600) as the final day of racing starts at the Ivy League women's swimming championships. If Penn can make up that deficit today they'll finish at their target of third, behind the untouchable Princeton and Harvard programs.
The Quakers received two first place finishes from rookie swimmer Shelby Fortin, who won the 500-yard freestyle Thursday and the 200 free Friday. She beat the defending champ from Princeton. Freshman Kristi Edelson won the 1,650-free.
If you want to follow the action in today's final events, the Ivy League is blogging it all right here.
Here's the video of the press conferences after Penn's 64-54 win over Columbia. Penn improved to 6-4 in Ivy play with the win. First are junior guard Zack Rosen and coach Jerome Allen, followed by Columbia coach Kyle Smith.
It might get a bit emotional for me tonight, as this will be the last men's basketball game that I'm live blogging from press row at the Palestra (or ever, for that matter). Brian Kotloff and Cal Silcox are here with me to bring you all the action as the Quakers look avenge their road loss to Columbia from two weeks ago.
We're back for the final home weekend of the year for men's basketball. We talk Tyler Bernardini, Princeton's loss to Brown, and preview the weekend. I'm joined this week by Assistant Sports Editor Sushaan Modi in his video debut as well as Sports Editor Kevin Esteves. Take a look:
As Penn wrestling gets its first weekend off in over a month in preparation for the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association championships, eight of the Quakers' grapplers received all-Ivy honors.
Chief among them was freshman Kyle Cowan, who picked up the Rookie of the Year award, just the fifth Penn wrestler to do so in program history. Cowan finished the regular season ranked No. 33 in the heavyweight division. He went 2-1 in Ivy duals with a win against No. 1 ranked Cornell's Stryker Lane. Overall he finished 16-13 and was named second-team all-Ivy in addition to ROTY
Senior Zach Kemmerer was Penn's only first-team all-Ivy selection, but he earned it unanimously. The award improves on his second-team distinction last season. Kemmerer led the Quakers with a 31-6 overall record in the regular season, and finished No. 12 in the 141-pound weightclass. He kept a clean 11-0 record against Ivy League wrestlers.
Joining Cowan on the second team were Mark Rappo, Rollie Peterkin, Andrew Lenzi, Scott Giffin and Micah Burak. Micah's brother Gabe was named an honorable mention. Of the 11 second-teamers, six were Quakers. Penn's eight all-Ivy nods was second to the Big Red, which had nine.
The Quakers will pick up next weekend when they head to the EIWA championships before returning to Philly for NCAAs after spring break.
It's easy to distinguish football players on campus. Aside from their obvious size, they love to wear their Ivy Championship swag — sweatshirts and jackets, etc. Can you blame them? Now there's a slightly flashier way to identify the title-winning athletes. They've apparently received their championship rings.
Earlier today, senior Bradford Blackmon tweeted this photo of his ring. Looks nice:
Potential Penn recruit Patrick Lucas-Perry (that's a mouthful) sat down with Flint Journal Sports for a little Q&A and the discussion eventually turned to recruiting.
Lucas-Perry listed Penn, Harvard, Oakland and BC as the schools that have been "aggressively" pursuing him (that was the questioners word, not Lucas-Perry's). But, he said his top two were Penn and Oakland, where his Brother LaVal plays. He seems pretty keen on playing with big bro:
I’ve never done it before and it would be something that’s just a insurmountable, great experience all tied into one especially with Coach (Greg) Kampe there. Being a Golden Grizzlie would just be an all-around great opportunity and something that would last for a lifetime.
The guard said he plans to make a decisions after his season ends.
The Q&A linked above is actually pretty nice, as it gives a good look at Lucas-Perry beyond just his recruiting. He even admits he's a bit of a momma's boy.
Potential Penn hoops recruit Devin Coleman recently got an offer from Clemson, and will be visiting the South Carolina campus this weekend.
He told Rivals.com (site has a paywall) that he has offers from seven schools, including Rice, Marshal and all of the Big 5 except Villanova. The 6-foot-3 195 pound shooting guard said that Clemson and Penn are his top two.
"I like them a lot," Coleman told Rivals about Clemson. "I've heard nothing but good things about them and I'm excited about coming down there. The feelings are mutual about me towards them, too. They've come to see me three times. The first time was in January and two other recent games."
He added that if he were to like Clemson this weekend, a decision could be forthcoming.
High School basketball leagues around the country are knee-deep in the postseason, and Penn's recruits are reportedly having a big impact on their teams' progress.
Jeff Janiczek of the Daily News reports that Xavier Harris and Constitution High are headed to the Public League semifinals after taking down Frankford High — which beat the generals earlier this year. As Janiczek writes:
Led by senior forward Xavier Harris, the Generals maintained an early lead to rout Frankford, 76-57, in the quarterfinals of Public League playoffs. Harris, who will play at Penn next season, scored a game-high 16 points and pulled down six rebounds for Constitution.
Recruited By: Stanford, Western Kentucky, Nevada, Ohio, New Mexico
The Recruiting Moment: Was committed to the Stanford until November when head coach Jim Harbaugh dismissed his linebackers coach. Davis was offered the opportunity to walk on, but decided to come to Penn.
The Skinny:, Davis, who is listed as three-star recruit on Rivals, is another all-around prospect who had to play 10 positions this past season. A 1st team all-State punter and 2nd team all-State as a linebacker, Davis will bring great his great physical tools to the Penn defense. He runs a 4.53 40 and has a max bench press of 300 pounds. One of his great strengths is the “ability to move sideline-to-sideline,” and intangibles. Davis will however need to gain some experience and work on his reads.
The Quote: “I don’t regret [playing multiple positions in high school]. I just wanted to do what’s best for the team, but at the same time it would’ve been nice to focus on one position.”
Seniors from all walks of campus are helping spread the word about the senior drive for donations for the Penn Fund — including athletes. In this latest video from S4TPF, there's a cameo from senior M. soccer goalie Ben Berg — turns out his acting is almost as good as his goal keeping. If you remember, Berg didn't allow a goal for just under 550 consecutive minutes in his senior campaign, second best in program history. See the video (with the Quaker) below:
It's not every day that a Quaker makes it into the pages of Sports Illustrated, so even if it's not an athlete, we're more than happy to post it here on The Buzz.
Our friends over at Under The Button pointed out that Penn Dental student Ashley Hebert — a contestant on the reality show The Bachelor — made it into this year's edition of the famous Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. As the UTB blogger put it:
Imagine our surprise when we were browsing through the recently released Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and stumbled upon her perky, symmetrical…smile!
For 15 reasons to join Team Ashley, check out her pictures here.
Senior staff writer Noah Rosenstein was on double duty this weekend, covering the men's hoops games and taking some photos for us. Here's our slideshow from the weekend wins over Brown and Yale.
I’m sure by now, everyone is well aware of the unfortunate event that occurred at Auburn University. But in case you haven’t turned on ESPN in the past couple days, I’ll give you an extremely brief rundown. A 62 year old man, Harvey Updyke Jr., has been charged with one count of first degree criminal mischief after attacking two oak trees located at the corner of Auburn’s Toomer Street with a strong herbicide. The trees, which are showered in toilet paper following the Tigers’ sports victories, were clearly a point of contention for Updyke, as he claimed he resented the Auburn student body’s toilet papering upon the death of Alabama coach, Paul Bryant in 1983.
This is certainly an instance of a collegiate sports rivalry gone too far. The 130-year-old trees are sadly not expected to survive. But the optimist in me commends the Auburn student body’s reaction to such a devastating act of violence. Yesterday morning, a steady stream of thousands — with flowers, signs, and Auburn spirit paraphernalia — arrived at the corner of Toomer Street to pay tribute to these beloved symbols of both Auburn collegiate and athletic pride.
I have to wonder: would the current Penn student body react in much the same way if put in a similar situation? I highly doubt it. Would anything as atrocious as this even happen on Penn’s campus, given students’ disinterest and inaction within context of the historical Philadelphia area and Ivy League rivalries? Probably not. Is there anything that is so synonymous with Penn athletic victories that students would rally to support it? I would argue no.
Granted, I realize that these oak trees were living symbols of pride — something that, to my knowledge, Penn lacks — but I can’t help but wonder what, if anything, would Penn students rally around given the opportunity. I mean, just look at the pounding Locust Walk takes at the hands of its own students every spring on Hey Day. What could someone possibly do to the Button outside of Van Pelt that would anger the student body enough to come out in droves to honor it? But perhaps the point I’m trying to make is that the current student body may understand the legends of old surrounding the Palestra and Franklin Field, but to them these sentiments are just that: things of the past, lacking all relevance to their Penn experience.
I know the topic of recently diminished Penn pride has been beaten to death, and up until this point, I really had nothing to contribute. I’m merely making an observation. But this is an observation that really struck a chord with me, and hopefully it resonates with others as well. Maybe it’s someone who wouldn’t think to attend Friday’s game against Columbia. Or maybe it’s someone who has never bothered to come out and support the Ivy League Champion football team play.
The Quakers finished off season sweeps of Brown and Yale, and swept an Ivy road weekend for just the second time since 2007. Penn is now back above .500 in the Ivy League at 5-4 and has already equaled last season's Ivy win total. That's the good from the whole weekend, but here's your breakdown of the 60-58 victory over Yale last night.
The Good: While Zack Rosen's game-winner with 2.3 seconds left was the play of the game, Mike Howlett's performance was the most encouraging takeaway. Howlett took advantage of his first start of the season after a very good effort off the bench Friday night against Brown. He wasn't as active on the boards as you might expect, but his three blocks — especially the one that set up Rosen's moment — were huge for the Quakers. And that's not counting various other shots he altered with his presence down low, not to mention his 11 points. Needless to say, his resurgence was timed perfectly with the absence of Conor Turley and Cam Gunter due to illness.
The Bad: Penn could have won this game much more easily than it did, but went 0-for-6 from three in the second half and shot just 2-11 from long range in the game. The Quakers led by as many as 17 in the first half and held an eight-point edge at halftime, but just like the night before against Brown, they let Yale back in the game with a 14-4 run to start the second half, which included two of those Penn misses from three. For a team that has relied pretty heavily on the three this season, you can't expect to win many games on the road with that kind of a shooting night.
The Ugly: With 1:25 to go in a tie game, Rosen nearly cost Penn the 'W' with an untimely and uncharacteristic turnover. Jack Eggleston was cutting from the block to the corner and Rosen threw a pass way behind him that sailed, as Rosen joked after, "into the Yale band." But, Mike Howlett came up huge defensively and Rosen redeemed himself on their last possession.
It was quite a weekend and quite a turnaround for the Quakers. After Saturday's 60-58 victory over Yale, we talked to Zack Rosen, Tyler Bernardini and of course coach Jerome Allen.
Penn completed the series sweep of Brown last night at the Pizzitola Center in Providence, R.I. As most victories are wont to be, this game had plenty of good for the Quakers and not all that much bad. Nevertheless, your good, bad and ugly:
The Good: It would be easy to pick Tyler Bernardini’s 26-point night on red-hot shooting (6-of-8 from three), but I was even more impressed by the Quakers’ defense down the stretch. This game almost became another heartbreaker, as Penn’s double-digit lead dwindled in the second half and Brown’s three-point shooting eventually brought it back in front, 49-48, with about six minutes remaining. From that point on it may have just been Brown cooling off, but the Quakes noticeably kicked it up a gear defensively, closing out quicker on three-pointers and actively pressuring the ball to force some key turnovers. Honorable Mentions: Besides Bernardini’s night, there was Mike Howlett’s 10-7 night, Zack Rosen’s 8-8 free throw shooting (mostly in the final minutes), and more simply, just getting an Ivy road win and snapping an eight-game Ivy road losing streak.
The Bad: The bad part of this game is hidden in that overly extensive breakdown of the good, and that was Penn letting Brown back into the game. The Quakers had total control in the second half before Brown went on its run to take the lead. It’s tough to complain since they were able to pull out the win, but as Megan wrote this week, the Quakers continue to struggle with inconsistency. When the game got tight, one commenter on the live blog said “Both teams know who's going to win this game. We do, too.” reflecting an obvious lack of confidence in this team as a result of the way it has closed out recent games like Harvard, Princeton and Cornell.
The Ugly: This DP sports writer’s battle with rush hour traffic on the way to the game. As many of you loyal followers know, we got to the game about 8 minutes (of clock time) into the first half because of horrendous delays on I-95 outside of New Haven. Rush hour traffic around New York is understandable. But New Haven?
The Quakers were in good spirits after finally getting back in the win column on Friday night at Brown. Unfortunately Brown doesn't have a very organized postgame interview set-up, so these were just taken in the hallway. Pardon the poor acoustics and slightly awkward close-ups.
Jerome Allen:
See Jack Eggleston and Tyler Bernardini after the jump.
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