M. Hoops caps perfect Ivy year with home rout
(06/01/00 9:00am)
Polytechnic School '96
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Final Four gets city hoopin'
(04/03/00 9:00am)
Hoop City and a host of other events got ballers of all ages into the act. Anna Fox and her sister Kate sat in the First Union Center last night cheering for their favorite Connecticut players, Sue Bird and Shea Ralph, who helped the Huskies beat Tennessee for the national title. While the girls were well-removed from the action on the court last night, earlier in the day the two got to pick up a ball and emulate their Huskies heroes by dribbling, shooting and scoring their way through Hoop City at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The centerpiece of the city's Women's Final Four activities, Hoop City was a chance for basketball players of all ages to test their basketball skills. From pressure free throws to buzzer beaters to half-court heaves, there were activities to test every imaginable basketball skill. Even the youngest fans had a chance to work on their games in a playground filled with mini-balls and two-foot hoops. "It's nice because it is so big and there are so many activities there's really no wait," Penn's All-American forward Diana Caramanico said. "The kids are really cute, and it's fun to see them go through the different [games]." Caramanico and the rest of the Quakers spent Friday and yesterday volunteering at Hoop City. Their responsibilities on Friday included running the mock TV studio where participants got to try their hands at being ESPN SportsCenter hosts. Kids and adults alike lined up to read cue-cards and breakdown game footage, and each got to take home a videotape copy of their two minutes under the lights. "[Fellow Penn basketball player] Claire [Cavanaugh] and I did it a couple times; it was really neat," Caramanico said. The event also featured entertainment from Sandy "Spin" Slade -- who spun eight basketballs on her body at once -- and autograph sessions with college All-Americans and local celebrities. "It shows you the growth of basketball for women that you can put an event on in the city of Philadelphia, and that event is at the level of what happened here," Philadelphia basketball maven Sonny Hill said as he sat signing autographs. "Not only did we have the largest crowds ever for college basketball at the First Union Center, but just the whole weekend has been phenomenal. "So it has been a fabulous weekend, and it speaks volumes about women's basketball and the acceptance of [the sport by] the public at large." In addition to Hoop City, the city hosted a number of other events to celebrate the Women's Final Four Saturday morning, the NCAA sponsored five YES Clinics in the Philadelphia area. The clinics taught basketball skills to kids aged 10-18 and were run by local coaches and players, including players from Penn. Saturday night, the Men's Final Four action was broadcast on giant screens in the Convention Center. A packed house watched Michigan State and Florida advance to tonight's national championship game in Indianapolis. Meanwhile, across the Ben Franklin Parkway, the organizing committee thanked media members and corporate sponsors by throwing a party at the Franklin Institute. Guests munched popcorn and hot dogs, while the semifinals of the Men's Final Four were shown in the Tuttleman Omniverse Theatre. Even out in the streets of Center City, it was clear the Final Four had taken over. In every direction there were fans wearing either the blue of UConn or the bright orange of the Lady Vols. The nearly 40,000 visitors were expected to generate $25 million in economic activity for the weekend -- making Philadelphia a winner even before the Huskies won last night's championship game.
Philly welcomes NCAA Championship
(03/30/00 10:00am)
PWB exceeds goals, readies for Final Four PWB exceeds goals, readies for Final FourThe organizing group overcame a fundraising shortage and plans to put on activities without a hitch. Women's Final Four Championship Week kicked off yesterday with an announcement that Philadelphia Women's Basketball 2000, the event's organizing committee, has exceeded its fundraising goal of $1.4 million and will be able to pay for all of the planned activities. Over the past weeks and months, there had been much talk that there would be a fundraising shortfall, but the host city and state governments came through with grants to cover the shortage. PWB officials would not release exact fundraising totals or how much money the state and local governments had provided. Philadelphia Sports Congress Executive Director Larry Needles, however, estimated that Philadelphia and Pennsylvania together donated about $150,000. The rest of the funds came from local corporate sponsors such as First Union Bank, American Water Works and Independence Blue Cross. Much of yesterday's press conference was spent publicly thanking the corporate sponsors, host schools and labor organizations for their donations. "We are so very proud of what our corporations have done, to join forces to make [the Final Four] possible," PWB co-chair Fred DiBona said. "I think the Final Four is one of the most important events to come to the city of Philadelphia in years." Speaking on why her company became a charter sponsor of the 2000 Final Four, American Water Works CEO Marilyn Weir contended that her company got involved for more than the customary tax write-off and image-enhancing publicity. "This all happened because I'm a frustrated 56-year-old basketball player," Weir said. "This has nothing to do with corporate citizenship. It's that [I] wish I could do that baseline shot from the corner the way I used to." On a more serious note, Weir said she noticed the growing fan base of women's basketball in the 23 states in which her company operates. While Penn and St. Joseph's are the official host universities for the Final Four, they handed the organizing and fundraising responsibilities off to PWB two years ago with the idea of creating a larger event than in past years. The creation of the PWB was a departure for the Women's Final Four, which in the past was organized out of the offices of the host university. Last year, for example, host-university Stanford had just a fundraising director, one staff member and three interns working full-time on Final Four activities, all of whom were Stanford employees. In contrast, this year's committee had two fundraising chairs, an organizing director, media directors, interns and help from the city visitors office. The shift in organizing strategies has caused an explosion in the size and scope of Final Four activities. To keep pace with the increase in programming, PWB announced it has recruited over 700 people to volunteer at least 12 hours of time. Last year's volunteer corp numbered just 600 according to Beth Goode, who was director of media relations for last year's event. Even with the increased staff, those associated with PWB gave much of the credit for the growth of the event to PWB Executive Director Cathy Andruzzi, who has headed PWB since its inception. "She's the one that has provided the energy; she's the one that has provided the insight; she's the one that had to deal with the problems every single day," DiBona said. Andruzzi's future with PWB, and PWB's future itself, will be one of the most pressing issues to consider following the Final Four. Andruzzi said there hasn't been time to think that far ahead this week, but she hopes to leave PWB as an organization that can grow the sport of women's basketball and continue to stage major basketball events. To help her assess PWB's potential future, Andruzzi will meet with a group of first-year Wharton MBAs who have spent the past 10 weeks studying PWB and assessing its viability as a permanent city organization. "Part of the creation of PWB was to create a long-term legacy financially and otherwise," said Mary DiStanislao, Penn's senior associate athletic director. "Our whole idea is to continue this and build playgrounds, to possibly fund scholarships, to get involved in youth programs."
Tennessee's 'Ace' returns home to chase NCAA title
(03/30/00 10:00am)
For everyone playing in this year's women's NCAA Tournament, the road to the championship goes through Philadelphia. For Tennessee junior Kristen Clement, that road also leads home. "Little did we know that not only would the Final Four be here in Philadelphia, but it would be in many many ways a Philadelphia weekend," PWB co-chair Fred DiBona said at the ceremonial opening of Championship Week yesterday. "We're pleased that Kristin Clement, the great Cardinal O'Hara star, will be here this weekend playing in Philadelphia as a Philadelphian. "I remember sitting in the Palestra and watching her perform with great amazement." Clement has deep roots in Philadelphia, but she has ties with some of the members of the Penn women's basketball team that predate even her local fame. Quakers guard Claire Cavanaugh also attended Cardinal O'Hara. She played with Clement not only in high school, but on the AAU powerhouse Philadelphia Bells as well. She tells a story from their AAU days that, at this point, seems clairvoyant. When Cavanaugh and Clement were in the eighth grade, the Bells were the AAU's national champs. The finals were played at that mecca of women's basketball -- Knoxville, Tenn. "We got there really early," Cavanaugh said. "We arrived in our Philadelphia Bells gear and everything. This custodian, who I don't think had a clue what was going on, let us into the actual Lady Vols locker room. Anyway, we thought that was pretty awesome, and I could tell then that she was pretty enamored of the whole scene." Enamored, maybe, but not intimidated. Even as an eighth grader, Clement, and others, knew that she could go places with basketball. "She's such a good player," Cavanaugh said. "And she has been for a long time. She's the type of player that makes everyone around her better." If she made her teammates better, what did she do to her opponents? Quakers co-captain Diana Caramanico recalls facing Clement on several occasions when she was playing on a different Philadelphia AAU team. "When we played against her as 11-year-olds, everybody was like, 'Oh, she's really good, you've got to watch out for her left hand, she's killer on the left hand,'" Caramanico said. "When you're little, you expect everyone to be right-handed, so it's really difficult to be guarding someone who uses the left hand, and she just killed us. "She was amazing. She was the main focus of the Bells. When you had to play the Bells, you really had to be careful about her." Caramanico was quick to point out that Clement, of course, was more than just a young phenom. "She was one of those kids that never fizzled out," Caramanico said. "There are always kids that never really amount to anything. But she was one of those kids that, every year we played against her, she just kept getting better and better, adding more and more skills to her repertoire, and it really paid off. She worked really hard, and she's doing great now." Doing great means averaging 25 minutes, 5.6 points and a team-leading 3.5 assists per game for a Lady Vols program that just clinched its NCAA-record 12th Final Four appearance. While those stats aren't tops among the Final Four's local players, Clement will still likely receive the most attention during the weekend. For one thing, her team is favored to reach the finals, while the other three -- Rashana Barnes and Andrea Garner of Penn State, and Shawnetta Stewart of Rutgers -- will be playing the role of underdogs. A second reason is the fame she received as a player at Cardinal O'Hara, where she broke countless city and county records, including Wilt Chamberlain's career scoring record. But to the casual fan, she is also recognizable due to her much-publicized one-time relationship with Philadelphia Flyers star Eric Lindros. "She's a cutie," said College senior Paul Manion, a fellow O'Hara alum and 34th Street editor. "Women's basketball was a huge draw. It always packed the gym, and it was all because of her. There would be people there all the time, even for the crappiest of their games. "When she was a junior, they had five girls that all played [Division I] basketball, and they all would have been a star in their own right on any other team. She was just heads and shoulders above anybody, even in the country, let alone Cardinal O'Hara or Delaware County. "She got all of the attention because she was that good."
W. Final Four set as top seeds advance
(03/28/00 10:00am)
The date, place and time of the 2000 NCAA Women's Final Four were set a long time ago. Now, just three days before the big party begins, the event finally has a guest list. Penn State, Connecticut and Tennessee all earned trips to Philadelphia last night, while Rutgers punched its ticket to the City of Brotherly Love in the wee hours of the morning after tipping off at midnight. Unlike the men's tournament, which has its Final Four dance card filled with unexpected teams, the women's Final Four boasts a heavy dose of favorites. UConn and Tennessee were both number one seeds, while Penn State and Rutgers were seeded second in their regions. While there was no official comment from the Final Four host committee last night, one can imagine their glee at having the two most widely recognized programs in the country -- UConn and Tennessee -- as well as a popular home-state team in the Lady Lions. With Rutgers joining the party as well, it looks to be a perfect ensemble that will begin play Friday night at the sold-out First Union Center. Penn Sate (30-4) pulled an upset last night, demolishing top-seeded Louisiana Tech 86-65 at the Midwest Regional in Kansas City. The Lady Lions used a 12-3 run at the start of the second half to build a 57-32 advantage over the Lady Techsters (31-3), and then cruised the rest of the way for an easy victory. The win sends Penn State to its first Final Four. The game also marked the final game for Louisiana Tech coach Leon Barmore, who is retiring after 18 years at the helm of the program with a lifetime record of 520-77. While Penn State's victory was a mild surprise, UConn's certainly wasn't. The top-ranked Huskies (34-1), who have consistently blown out opponents both during the regular season and during the tournament, had a relatively difficult time last night against LSU (25-7) before finishing with a comfortable 86-71 win in the East Regional in Richmond, Va. For the Huskies, relatively difficult means they led by only eight with 12 minutes to play, and never led by more than 17 during the game. UConn will meet Penn State in one Final Four game. Tennessee will comprise one-half of the other National Semifinal following their 57-44 victory over Texas Tech at the Mideast Regional in Memphis. The top-seeded Lady Vols (31-3) will make Philadelphia the site of their NCAA-record 12th Final Four appearance. In the last game of the night, Rutgers beat top seed Georgia, 59-51, in the West Regional final in Portland, Ore., to ensure a date with the Lady Vols at the First Union Center.
Undefeated! M. Hoops declaws Tigers for 14-0 Ivy record
(03/08/00 10:00am)
A rivalry traditionally filled with drama had little in a rout by Penn With the clock winding under four minutes at the Palestra last night and Penn thoroughly dominating Princeton on the hardwood, there was little left to do but celebrate. So Quakers senior guard Matt Langel did exactly that by firing a perfect lob pass to Geoff Owens, who rammed it home with a reverse dunk. That got the standing-room-only crowd into the act, as the first chants of "Undefeated" began to echo in the very rafters where another Ivy League Championship banner will soon be lifted. When the final horn sounded, the scoreboard read 73-52 in favor of the Quakers. More important to the hundreds of fans rushing the floor and the players they were about to embrace was the Quakers' Ivy League record -- a perfect 14-0. After so many classic battles in recent years, this latest Penn-Princeton showdown was relatively short on drama. Princeton (19-10, 11-3 Ivy League) led, 3-0, two minutes in after Spencer Gloger knocked down an open three from the top of the key. But by the first television timeout with 14 minutes, 42 seconds to play, Penn (21-7, 14-0) was ahead, 4-3. The Quakers would never trail again. Penn was up by at least 10 points for the entirety of the second half. "The game was lost right in the beginning," Tigers coach Bill Carmody said. "We got some pretty decent looks early and missed them." Princeton not only opened the game by shooting a frigid 1-of-10 from the floor, but was also hurt by two quick fouls to both starting forward Ray Robins and sixth man Nate Walton. That left lots of room for drives to the bucket by Penn's Michael Jordan and post moves from Owens and Ugonna Onyekwe. Penn outscored Princeton 20-0 in the paint during the first half. "There was a lot of dribble penetration, and we either made the choice to stop the penetration or try to stop the pass," Tigers sophomore center Chris Young said. "When they get the ball that deep, it made it easy to score." Princeton, meanwhile, did its best to make the Palestra's west basket look like a rigged carnival game, making just four of its 20 first-half shots and limping off to the locker room down, 26-13. Penn tried to shut the door on Princeton with an 8-0 run to start the second half. The Quakers' inside game continued to work to perfection, helping to open the floor for perimeter shooting by Langel, who followed a bagel in the first half with 11 second-half points. The Quakers shot an Ivy-season best 56.6 percent from the field for the game -- not bad against a Princeton defense that is ranked sixth in Division I field-goal percentage defense (36.2 percent). But this being Penn-Princeton, one team can never completely dominate the other, and last night was no exception. Coming out of a timeout with 7:30 to play, Gloger knocked down a three off a feed from Young to bring the Tigers within 10. Two free throws by Onyekwe and another bucket by Gloger made the score 55-45 with five minutes to play, but that would be as close as Princeton would get. "When they cut it to 10, we knew we needed to stop the run," Jordan said. However, he and Dunphy both dismissed the notion that the team was having flashbacks to last year, when Penn lost a 27-point lead to the Tigers. Seven straight points by the Quakers did more than stop the run -- it effectively ended the game. A three-pointer by Langel off a feed from Owens with 3:44 left capped the run. The Quakers ran the lead all the way to 24 before Jordan, Langel and fifth-year senior Frank Brown were called to the bench one final time in their home and Ivy League careers. That left the floor to senior Mike Koller, the fourth recruit from the fall of 1996 along with Jordan, Langel and Owens. Koller, who has played JV the past three seasons, suited up for tonight's finale and made the most of his opportunity by making one of two free throws with 23 seconds to play. While the loudest ovations were given to the seniors last night, they were not the only ones on display. Onyekwe put the final touches on his case for Ivy League Rookie of the Year by throwing in 20 points in 39 minutes of action. Owens, who will apply for an extra year of eligibility following the season, added 14. "[Owens] was as relaxed and poised as I have ever seen him," Dunphy said of the center, who uncharacteristically dished six assists while grabbing only three rebounds. Following the game, it was time for both teams to begin pondering the contests that might lie ahead. For Princeton, they will wait for the NIT pairings to be announced and hope to be one of the 32 invitees. For the Quakers, up next is an assured first-round game in the NCAA Tournament. As for what seed the Quakers will get, Dunphy said most predictions he had seen put the Quakers as a No. 12 seed. But the last words on the future were best left to the player most responsible for getting them this far. "We like winning," Jordan said. "We want to keep it going as long as possible."
Wharton MBA students help Final Four planners
(03/01/00 10:00am)
The six first-year MBA students are studying Philadelphia Women's Basketball 2000. When the nets are cut down, the trophies are handed out and the fans head for the exits, will there be anything left from the Women's Final Four in Philadelphia other than fond memories? That is the question six first-year Wharton MBA students are working to answer. Unlike past years, the 2000 Women's Final Four is being organized by a committee independent of the host universities -- Penn and St. Joseph's. That committee, Philadelphia Women's Basketball 2000, hopes to outlive March Madness and continue as a community organization working to promote women's athletics in Philadelphia. The six students chose to work with PWB as their Field Application Project -- a semester-long required course designed to introduce first-year MBAs to unstructured real-life business problems. Most project teams select companies and projects pre-screened by Wharton. The companies each pay $2,500 to Wharton in exchange for the consulting services of an MBA team. Team member Leah Buhl chose instead to use her connections to the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce to arrange a project with PWB, which had its $2,500 fee waived due to its non-profit status. "When we first went in, we said, 'Let's do something with the Final Four,'" group member Preston McGowan said. "What really came out was, 'What's going on after the Final Four?' and we thought that was a much bigger need for PWB." While making it clear that their work is not a comprehensive study, they hope to provide PWB Executive Director Cathy Andruzzi with a plan for how PWB can define and market itself if it lives on after the Final Four is over. As part of the course requirements, the group has met with its faculty advisor and prepared progress reports throughout the semester. The team's final report will not be in its final form until March 27 -- right in the heart of Championship Week. Andruzzi hopes that the team will suggest strategies for continuing PWB's transformation from host committee and corporate logo to a grass-roots oriented community organization. When PWB was formed in 1998, its logo and brand name were a way to sidestep NCAA regulations prohibiting the use of the NCAA logo by anyone other than its national sponsors. In order to increase local corporate support of the Final Four, PWB created its own logo and brand, which can be used by sponsors in their advertising. "We wanted to give the local community a brand to have ownership of," Andruzzi said. PWB's mission, however, goes beyond serving as a corporate logo. It has become active in the community through youth clinics and a women in sports speaker series. Its goals will culminate in a number of community-wide events during Championship Week at the end of March. "Our mission statement is much broader than Championship Week," Andruzzi said. "Our vision is to not just run a great week, but to help grow women's sports? to give young girls an opportunity on a grass-roots level to gain both physical and mental skills." What sort of structure will best serve those goals once the Final Four is over is one of the driving questions behind the Wharton students' project. Although their final report won't be finished until the end of March, the group has some hunches as to what it will recommend. One important decision will be the scope of the future PWB. The group thinks it is best if the organization sticks to promoting basketball, instead of expanding to support multiple sports. "Basketball is really a unifying game," Buhl said. "It goes across a wide range of socio-economic levels. In its efforts, [PWB] still draws attention to women's sports." The group has recently been paring down its focus even further due to the limited time of the semester. With little formal data available about the number of youth basketball leagues in the area, the students have had to use individual interviews with a variety of business and community leaders to gauge the interest in PWB and brainstorm on the ways PWB can organize itself. If PWB can live on past the Final Four, it will be a first for an organizing committee of its type. In previous years, the organizing committees for the Final Four have been more closely linked to the host universities and were designed strictly to support Championship Week. Even though PWB is without precedent, Andruzzi believes that now is a great time to build an organization like PWB. She noted that women's college basketball made a huge leap in popularity when the media-heavy Northeast devoted major news coverage to the University of Connecticut's 1995 undefeated season. As the Women's Final Four has never been held in the Northeast before, Andruzzi hopes to see a similar explosion of attention surrounding this year's final.
Ice Cold: Sloppy play mars M. Hoops loss to Owls
(01/21/00 10:00am)
Penn shot just 28 percent in its third straight Big 5 defeat. Despite the efforts of the Penn and Temple men's basketball teams, the only thing falling in North Philadelphia last night was snow. Shot after shot clanged off the rim for 40 minutes in a rhythmless and imprecise Philadelphia Big 5 City Series game before 8,233 spectators at the Apollo of Temple. When it was all said and done, the Owls walked away with a 44-40 victory over the visiting Quakers. Considering the two teams combined to shoot 29-for-99 from the floor for the game, it was only fitting that a player who was just 4-for-9 from the free throw line ended up being the hero for Temple. With the score 41-40 in favor of Temple (11-4, 3-0 Big 5) and just 38 seconds left on the clock, Owls forward Lamont Barnes grabbed a loose ball away from Penn guard Michael Jordan underneath the Temple hoop and was fouled as he went up for a shot. After a timeout by Penn, Barnes, who was just 2-for-7 from the charity stripe to that point, rolled his first free throw in off the front rim and coolly swished the second to give Temple a 43-40 lead. Jordan walked the ball up the court on the ensuing possession, but he could not find an opening for a shot. Penn freshman Ugonna Onyekwe ended up with the ball in his hands toward the top of the key and threw up a wild three-point shot. The errant attempt was rebounded by Temple's Quincy Wadley. After a foul by Jordan, Wadley sank one of two free throws to seal the win. Penn coach Fran Dunphy said that he knows his team has the ability to win the close games but needs to find a way to get over the figurative hump that is standing in the Quakers' way. Missed three-pointers were the norm for Penn (5-7, 0-3). Jordan was 1-for-9; shooting guard Matt Langel was 2-for-13; and Penn shot 5-for-26 from behind the arc for an unimpressive 19-percent clip. Long-range shots, however, were about the only looks at the basket Penn's offense could get against Temple's matchup zone. The Quakers could get nothing going inside the paint, as Temple's size and bulk inside limited center Geoff Owens to three shots, all of which were missed. By the final few minutes it was common to see four of Penn's five players on the court circling outside the three-point arc, having all but abandoned the inside game. "They are such a good defensive basketball team. I'm not surprised by the shooting percentages and how difficult it was for us to score," Dunphy said. "We didn't get much inside. We didn't anticipate getting a lot, but we needed a little bit more." Neither team 'got a lot' on offense at any point in the game. Instead, the two teams slowly jabbed at each other like overweight prize fighters, leaving the crowd little to get excited about until the final two minutes. The largest lead of the game for Temple was six, while Penn was never up more than two. "We were never in sync, and I blame myself for that," Owls senior guard Pepe Sanchez said. Sanchez has played just five games since suffering an ankle injury in the Owls' opener. Despite his self-deprecating remarks, Sanchez was equally responsible for his team's success. Two possessions after Penn junior Oggie Kapetanovic made a layup on an assist from Jordan to put the Quakers up 15-13, Sanchez drained a three on a kick-out from Kevin Lyde to put Temple up 16-15. The two-point Penn lead Sanchez erased ended up being the high-water mark for Penn in the game, as the Quakers never led again. After another bucket by Temple, Langel hit one of his two three-pointers from well behind the arc to pull Penn even at 18 a minute before the half. Going into the locker room tied at 18 was a good spot for Penn to be in, given the fact that they committed 10 first-half turnovers. Temple, meanwhile, turned the ball over just four times for the entire game. "It was an ugly game because you don't score a lot of points, but we didn't have turnovers," said Owls coach John Chaney, who is now 18-1 lifetime against the Quakers. "That's my kind of game?. It's a game I like to think my way out of rather than fuss my way out of." Penn tied the game one more time, at 25, with 13:49 to play in the game. From that point on, Penn remained close but always one-half step behind an Owls team that did a better job in the second half of using its size in the middle to its advantage. With Penn collapsing to help fight the battles down low, Temple used the extra space on the perimeter to shoot a respectable 2-for-6 from three-point range in the second half. As the final horn sounded, Penn was left with a new addition to the mounting number of close-shave losses in this 1999-2000 season. Like each snowflake falling outside last night, this Penn loss may have been different from the others in its intricacies. But after a while they all start to look alike.
Finishing strong
(11/11/99 10:00am)
Seniors Scott Clayton, Mark Granshaw and Sean Macmillan near the end of their college careers. Scott Clayton, Mark Granshaw and Sean Macmillan are no strangers to the emotional highs and lows of collegiate running. They have watched their team -- called "snake bitten" by coach Charlie Powell -- suffer injuries, illness, transfers and retirements that would make anyone want to wave the white flag. Nevertheless, the three senior cross country runners will be there on the starting line Saturday as the Quakers race to qualify for the national championships for the first time since 1971. That these three have persisted is even more impressive given the burden of expectations with which they were saddled when they came to Penn in the fall of 1996. That season, Penn welcomed seven freshmen onto a roster that had finished last in the Heptagonal Championships in 1995. Each of the seven was a state or district champion of some type in high school and within the first few races of the season, they established themselves as strong contributors to the team. Three years later, as the Penn seniors stepped to the line at their final Heps, the promise of that first fall remained an unfulfilled prophecy. After finishing seventh their freshman year, they had gone to fifth and then back to sixth the following two seasons. Especially troubling was Macmillan's string of injuries and illnesses that kept him from even starting the race once in his first three years. This year, however, the prophecy was finally fulfilled at Heps. Driven by Macmillan and Clayton's top-five finishes, Penn finished third in the nine-team field on October 29, its best Heps performance in decades. There were only three seniors on the course at Heps for Penn but there were more cheering from the sidelines. As much as they were teammates, they were and still are friends. Of the original group, the only one missing was Joe Campagna, who transferred from Penn. "I can remember as freshmen when we had our super-group and we were ready to take on the world," Macmillan said. "We said that by the time we were seniors we would be kicking everyone's ass. "Now that there are three of us left, it's time to group together for one last chance. It's interesting to see how many people we have lost. I wouldn't have considered myself to be one of the last people." Of the three who remain, Macmillan has clearly had the most ups and downs. Much of his sophomore season was lost after he skewered his shin on a fence on a summer training run, and he fell ill just days before Heps his junior season. It's easy to see why he was ready to quit on more than one occasion. "Sophomore year, a race at Lafayette, I ran the worst race of my life and I walked off the course, sat down on a bench and said, 'That's it, I quit, I am never running again," Macmillan said. "I would have been the first one to quit. " Powell recalled one occasion on which Macmillan said he was quitting the team. "One day he came in to quit and I just told him to leave and that I would see him at practice at 3:30," Powell said. "He walked out the door and was at practice." Macmillan even threw all of his running shoes in the trash one day to signal the end of his career. Given his track record, it's not surprising to learn that he eventually fished them out and put them back on his feet. "It is a real credit to Sean to overcome [his setbacks]," Princeton distance coach Mike Brady said. "Given the stresses of an Ivy League school, it is easy to pack your bags and move in another direction." Clayton and Granshaw have had their doubts as well, but haven't collected the number of self-imposed pink slips that Macmillan has. "Every now and then, there are certain times when you know they are hooked," Powell said. "For some reason, Scott has always seemed like he was hooked. Mark Granshaw is as solid as the day is long. Sean has that emotional rollercoaster." Of the original seven, four -- Campagna, Jason Greene, Jon Krol and Jim Miranda -- did choose to leave the team, but they did not leave the group. Of the six still on campus, they are all friends. Miranda and Greene even live with Clayton, Granshaw and Macmillan. "It was a tough decision but I didn't have the same focus they have," said Miranda, who left the team during his sophomore year. With ROTC and a heavy academic schedule, Miranda already had a full plate of activities, which he has since added to by coaching youth soccer. Still, Miranda throws on his shoes for an occasional run, saying it is like old times when they are out on the road together. "We have to deal with their decisions as friends besides the fact as teammates," Clayton said. "As teammates, it sucks. You lose a guy who is really talented, but if his head is not in it, then it is not something that you would want to deal with anyway. Each of us had to make a personal decision." With the force that was going to conquer the cross-country world diminishing in size, it was time for the remaining few to get serious. Clayton said that it was during sophomore year that he hit the point when he knew he was committed. Deciding to stick with the sport did not mean that they had found peace with their role as mentors for the team. Last season, the challenge was to form a unified team from a group of talented runners -- a task that proved difficult. The idea that running is a personal sport -- the idea so often held by outsiders but rarely by the athletes themselves -- crept into the team last year as runners started doing their own workouts and looked out for their own personal interests. "Last year, we started out well and I don't think certain guys knew how to handle that," Granshaw said. "People weren't sure if we were good enough to win as a team, so maybe they were more worried about individual aspects." "At the beginning, we cared about the team, but as the season wore on we got the attitude of 'forget about them, lets just run for ourselves,'" Macmillan said. "We knew that we did that wrong and coach knew that we did that wrong. We knew that if we wanted to do anything individually, we would have to do it as a team." The older runners also wrestled with the lifestyle choices some of their younger teammates were making. Having been no strangers to the Penn party scene their freshman year, they wanted to help the new guys avoid making some of the same choices. Trying to get them to trade in dates and drinking for nights at home in front of the TV, however, did not pan out as an effective strategy. "We just wanted to come in and say, 'You are not allowed to do anything,'" Macmillan said. "Everyone on the team hated us, which is totally understandable. You can't tell someone, 'Don't go out, you can't drink,' considering I think we broke the record freshman year." Last spring, during the outdoor track season, Powell finally put into words what everyone knew was going on. He said he walked in, told everyone he was through watching the team split itself apart, and that was that. "It was all things that we knew needed to be changed for the most part," Granshaw said of the meeting. Sophomore Matt Gioffre, the Quakers' No. 3 runner, certainly noticed a difference. He pointed to the summer as one big difference, saying that his captains called him regularly to check on his training progress this summer, whereas last summer he didn't hear from the Penn captains once. By the time summer team training camp rolled around, "We knew we had a good thing going," Gioffre said. With the success of Heps now two weeks in the past, the challenge is to qualify for nationals. Not only are Clayton and Macmillan favored to advance, but the entire team has the depth to qualify for one of the at-large bids in the field of 31 teams. "We are one of the top 30 teams in the country," Powell said. "It all depends if everything goes true to form -- which hardly ever happens -- we should make it in." That is the goal. After three years of running largely as an aggregate of individuals, the seniors can finally say they are running as a team. "We have a lot of good guys on the team, and I like seeing them improve as well," Macmillan said. "Especially in the case of Matt Gioffre. In the last year I've seen that kid grow so much. I'm jealous as hell of him.? I want to take his eligibility." All three seniors admitted that it is odd to think that this is the last race and that four years had passed so quickly. Having finally beaten the demon and finished in the top three at Heps has been great, but to their coach -- who stresses the journey-like process of improving in the sport -- the biggest accomplishment has been that they made it to the end of four years. "Because the sport is an entire lifestyle, very few people really stick with it all the way to the final levels. It is easier to do something else," Powell said. "It is easier not to have to get up at 7 o'clock every morning. It is easier not to run 80- to 90-mile weeks three, four years in a row. "They have the chance, out of literally hundreds of thousands of high school runners, to be in the top 250 people. That is a huge weeding-out process."
Title hopes fading as Yale beats Football
(11/01/99 10:00am)
The Quakers fell to 2-2 and fifth place in the Ivy League as Yale squeaked out a 23-19 victory. NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- With three weeks to play in the 1999 Ivy League football season, there are still four teams tied for first place with only one loss. Penn, however, is no longer one of them. After dropping a key league contest to Yale, 23-19, before 20,762 at the Yale Bowl on Saturday, the Quakers fell into fifth place, a game behind the leaders. In snapping a seven-year losing streak to Penn, Yale (6-1, 4-1 Ivy League) won its sixth straight on the season and kept itself in the Ivy title hunt, tied for first with Harvard, Cornell and Brown. Penn, meanwhile, dropped to 2-2 in the league (3-4 overall), and is in need of lots of help to climb back into the title chase. As often happens in a game where both offenses stagnant in the red zone -- the teams combined for seven field goals -- the winning play was the lone touchdown scored in the second half. With Penn's defense doing a good job of clogging the middle of the field, Yale's mobile quarterback, Joe Walland, got around the right side, picked up a key downfield block from wide receiver Jake Fuller and ran untouched into the end zone. Walland's 29-yard scamper for a touchdown with 6 minutes, 41 seconds to play was the knockout punch in what was a tough contest between two evenly matched teams. Walland set up his own touchdown run by scrambling for 18 yards on a draw up the middle on the previous play. For the day, the senior carried the ball 15 times for 57 yards, a number that would have been much higher if he hadn't been sacked for a loss on four occasions. "It almost seemed anticlimactic as both teams were battling so much back and forth, to have a quarterback scramble for 50-something yards," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "I'd much rather see a deep pass or a tailback run it down the field." Yale's long-distance touchdown run, however, was not representative of the rest of the game. For most of the 60 minutes, the two offenses -- which combined for almost 800 yards of total offense -- marched themselves to within a few yards of the end zone, only to be turned away. The Elis had the ball first-and-goal four times in the first half, and posted just two field goals and a fumble until breaking through for a touchdown to make the score 13-10 with 1:50 to go in the first half. "I think we are a good goal-line defense because we feel a sense of urgency," Penn defensive lineman Mike Germino said. "Trying to get that defense to play all the time is what our problem is." Yale's goal-line offense was a far different attack from its regular sets. In the middle of the field, Yale had no problem running up the middle and throwing 10-yard out-passes to the receivers. But at the goal line, Walland consistently launched uncatchable fade patterns into the corner. "[Penn] is a great goal line team," Yale coach Jack Siedlecki said. "I talked to the kids about that and we talked about having to throw the ball down on the goal line and put the ball in the end zone. Both defenses rose up when they had to and forced a lot of field goals. Thank God we made them." Penn had red zone troubles of its own, leaving place kicker Jason Feinberg free to notch a school record-tying four field goals. The junior connected from 34 yards in the first half, and then added kicks of 38, 28 and 22 yards in the second half as Penn continually inched closer to the goal line but could not put one over. Feinberg might have had a fifth field goal, but up 7-3 in the first quarter Penn coach Al Bagnoli elected to go for it on fourth-and-one from the Yale 10. Tailback Kris Ryan's run up the middle came up short, handing the ball over to the Elis. While Yale could not capitalize on that miscue, Penn did turn a missed fourth down by the Elis into three points. On fourth-and-one from its own 43-yard line with 3:30 left in the third, Yale pitched the ball backwards to running back Rashad Bartholomew, who followed his fullback straight into a wall of Penn linemen and failed to get back to the line of scrimmage. Penn took the ball and marched to the Yale 11. This time Bagnoli elected to kick the ball on fourth-and-one. The made field goal put Penn ahead 16-13 as time ran out in the third quarter. Yale tied the game at 16 with 11:12 to play with a high floating field goal by Mike Murawczyk from 43 yards out. The drive was set up by a Ryan fumble on Penn's 28-yard line. Ryan had gotten the one yard needed for a first down on the play but was hit as he broke through a hole in the middle of the field. He coughed the ball straight into the air where a small horde of Elis linebackers were waiting to fall on it. "This year I've had a little trouble holding onto the ball," said Ryan, who rushed for 166 yards for the game. "I saw a hole and was just trying to take it. They just hit me and it came out." Penn answered right back. After a stellar kickoff return by an otherwise quiet Brandon Carson, Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman connected with Rob Milanese over the middle for 33 yards. A 14-yard run by Ryan left Penn with first and goal at the six, but once again the offense hiccuped near the end zone and gained only one yard in three plays. Feinberg came in to hit the 22-yard field goal with 8:41 to play. That field goal would end the scoring for the Quakers. Hoffman got the ball back following Walland's winning run and made two first-down passes to get to the Yale 41 but was sacked on the next play for a loss of 10. After an incompletion on second down, Hoffman was hit as he threw a ball down the left sideline to a triple-covered Milanese on third down. The pass was intercepted by Todd Tomich and Penn's offense never saw the field again. Bartholomew took over from there and ran the ball through the middle of Penn's defense to run out the final three minutes of the game.
COLUMN: Internet access should stay free
(10/26/99 9:00am)
But Penn's days as an ISP are numbered. The Network Planning Task Force has proposed eliminating Penn's modem pool by the end of the year, forcing students living off-campus to pay for their own Internet access. For anyone who thought hell would freeze over before hearing the phrase, "America Online can do it better," it's time to grab those ice skates. Penn estimates that 50 to 80 percent of the Web traffic on PennNet is for non-Penn related Web sites, deemed "recreational" by the task force. Therefore, the task force seems to think it's OK to make students pay. That's right. I apparently get off by reading the latest articles on the World Trade Organization's Web site. Apparently this university, rated as one of the 100 best technology schools by Wired magazine, doesn't see how my having access to the Web from my off-campus room relates to my university education. Maybe they just want me to stop buying textbooks from Amazon.com. Internet service is absolutely part of Penn's core function as a place of learning. But through the outsourcing decision, students are indirectly being told that the Internet is not an integral part of their education. In their report, the Network Task Force also wrote: "Through careful analysis, ISC has determined that as the demand for better, faster and more accessible remote access continues to develop the University cannot afford to deploy adequate services." The result: An outsourcing move that cuts costs for the University while supposedly improving service, in the same manner that the Trammell Crow and Bon Appetit outsourcings were rationalized. There is, however, an important difference in this case. Outsourcing Internet service means some students will have to pay more, not less, to get online. The modem pool is currently funded, in part, by student housing fees. And the outsourcing plan would remove the need for on-campus students to subsidize their off-campus peers. But while on-campus students may notice a rounding-error sized reduction in their Service Fee, off-campus students will have to shell out $150 or more annually for Internet access to the likes of America Online or Bell Atlantic. This cost is likely to be 10 times what on-campus students wold be saving. The task force also contends that by contracting through a non-University source, students will be able to reap the benefits of faster Internet service. Actually, the only option that the University has changed is that students can no longer get free 33.6k service. Everyone has always been able to go ahead and spend $50 a month on high-speed Internet access if they wanted. For the next year, students can choose to continue using Penn's modem pool for a monthly charge. Penn's present modem pool, however, cannot support connections higher than 33.6 kbps and will not be upgraded. But computers sold in the last year come with 56k modems as standard equipment; in late August, I purchased a new 56k modem for $19.95 at my local computer store. To think that my new modem is rendered impotent by an Ivy League school -- one that promotes distance learning, interactive course assistants and more listserves, chat groups and more class Web sites than one can imagine -- is ridiculous. Penn is now too cheap to spend the $1 million it would cost to upgrade the modem pool to 56k, thus denying a necessary service to its students. This is a reversal of policy from 1996, when Penn spent heavily to upgrade its modem pool in the wake of massive overloading of the system. That fall, with the Quad not yet wired for ResNet, the modem pool was always overloaded, prompting Penn to increase the number of available lines and improve connection speed. The upgrade has not been followed by another major improvement in three years -- decades on Internet standard time. The new policy doesn't go into effect until July 2000. That's more than enough time to rethink a misguided decision.
A final chance at the crown
(03/02/99 10:00am)
A first trip to the NCAAs is the goal for the team's seniors. Senior forward Paul Romanczuk thinks his mom might know where his 1996 men's basketball Ivy League co-champions ring is located, but he doesn't have any idea where it might be hiding. Jed Ryan, also a senior forward and one of only two other members of the current roster who was on the varsity team that year, at least knows where his is. "The co-championship ring that I have, I think I put it in my dad's drawer at home and I've never looked at it again," the senior forward said. When Penn plays Princeton at the Tigers' sold-out Jadwin Gymnasium tonight at 7:30 p.m., Ryan, Romanczuk and their Quaker teammates will have 40 minutes to win their 1999 Ivy League championship rings outright. A win will propel Penn to an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since 1995. And with a one-game lead over Princeton going into the contest, a loss gives them another co-championship and sends them to a one-game playoff Friday night at Lehigh University. But tonight is the only chance the Class of 1999 has to erase the word "co" from its Ivy League championship record. "A co-championship doesn't mean anything," Ryan said. "We're going to go and play to win at Jadwin. [Tonight] is the night it needs to get done." Tonight is the last time that this core of players can accomplish that goal. Unlike the rest of society, which measures generations in decades, a college generation lasts just four years. It's also the last chance for a generation of Penn seniors to be a part of what many thought was their God-given right when they sent in their first tuition checks -- an NCAA men's basketball tournament berth. The Class of 1999 inherited three straight undefeated Ivy League seasons. Those wide-eyed freshmen then saw two wins over Princeton, including a 63-49 victory at the Palestra at the final game of the 1996 regular season to force a one-game playoff. Then, the wheels fell off the proverbial wagon that seemed destined for a fourth straight trip to the NCAAs. Princeton won the one-game playoff at neutral Lehigh's Stabler Arena 63-56 in overtime, ending the Ivy League co-champion Quakers' season and sending the Tigers to the first of three straight NCAA appearances. "Paul and I talk about [the title drought] all the time," Ryan said. "We didn't go when we were freshmen and probably should have. The next two years were kind of rough. We haven't done it, no one in the senior class has ever seen Penn in the tournament, so it's big for us." Despite the disappointments, the past two years would be above average for any Ivy League school except Penn or Princeton, who together have won 33 out of the last 36 Ivy titles. The Quakers, starting mostly freshmen and sophomores, went 8-6 in the Ivy League in 1997 after losing Ivy Player of the Year forward Ira Bowman, first-team All-Ivy center Tim Krug and second-team All-Ivy guard Donald Moxley. Last year, again starting just one senior -- guard Garett Kreitz -- Penn improved to 10-4 in the league and finished second to a dominant Princeton team that was ranked as high as No. 8 nationally. This season has seen another dramatic boost in both record and quality of play. A veteran team led by Romanczuk, Ryan, junior guards Matt Langel and Michael Jordan and junior center Geoff Owens owns a 12-1 Ivy League record, nearly swept the Big Five and beat nationally ranked Temple University for the first time since 1982. And now, all that is left is to beat a Princeton team that despite recent upset losses to lowly Harvard and Yale, has beaten Penn six consecutive times during a 35-game Ivy winning streak that began with the '96 playoff game and ended with last month's 50-49 Palestra shocker. "Looking back a month ago, I didn't think [the Tigers] were going to lose to a Harvard or a Yale, I didn't think they were going to lose at all because they haven't in the past," the 6'7" Romanczuk said. "This is it for us. This is it." It's also the only chance for forward Mike Sullivan and guard Brendan Cody -- the other two Quakers set to graduate this year -- to be a part of a championship season. Sullivan joined the team his sophomore season, while Cody's three solid campaigns on the JV squad earned him a promotion to varsity status for his final year. "It all comes down to [tonight]," Sullivan said. "We know it [and] Princeton knows it, so it will all play out [tonight]." It is unlikely Cody will remove his warmups, but depending on Penn coach Fran Dunphy's substitution pattern, Sullivan could have a key role in tonight's game. In the first meeting against Princeton, Sullivan logged 13 minutes and made his only field goal attempt. He will likely split time with the third remaining player from that '96 season, forward Frank Brown. Although he joined the team the same year as Ryan and Romanczuk, Brown has a fifth year of eligibility because of injuries during his sophomore season and is expected to return next year. But most seniors, whether on the court or in the stands, don't have a fifth year to think about -- their only chance is now. "We kind of feel like ambassadors for the school," Ryan said. "We feel like we have let everyone down for too many years. Now it's time to step up and do what we have to do." And fan-favorite Romanczuk, who became the 26th player in Penn history to score 1,000 career points earlier this year, said a trip to the NCAAs remains his only goal. "I don't want to hear the word 'co' at all," Romanczuk said. "This 'co-champs' means nothing right now."
ANALYSIS: What does Princeton's loss mean?
(02/16/99 10:00am)
The Princeton men's basketball team's souble overtime loss to Yale on Friday does not just help Penn. The headline was almost as big as the one that said "Acquitted" on the front page. "Stunner ends streak" read The New Haven Register Saturday morning after Yale's improbable 60-58 double-overtime defeat of Princeton Friday night. The Elis' win ended the Tigers' Ivy League win streak that had spanned three years and 35 games, not to mention the entire head coaching career of Princeton front-man Bill Carmody. While the 35 wins were barely within spitting distance of the mammoth 48-game record streak Penn ran up from 1992-96, the loss is significant in that it is the first dent in Carmody's armor since he took over the team three years ago. No wonder, then, that the sound of Yale fans rushing the court in celebration quickly spread to the stands of the Pizzitola Sports Center in Providence. "There was a minute left in [our game] and I heard everybody cheering and I'm like, 'What the hell, there's nothing going on,'" Penn point guard Michael Jordan said. "But then I heard the band cheering and I put two and two together." · Penn was not even the main beneficiary of Princeton's loss. That distinction belongs to Dartmouth, which was magically vaulted into the realm of "Ivy League contender." With an 8-2 Ivy record, the Big Green control their own fate in the title race. Wins over Penn and Princeton this weekend, and Brown and Yale next weekend, would earn the youthful squad -- Dartmouth starts two freshman, two sophomores and a junior -- a trip to the NCAAs. "I thought the timing was right," Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher said of Princeton's loss. "[The game against Penn last Tuesday] was a hard game to recover from." Faucher is also the first to admit that the timing probably is not right for his team to sneak away with the Ivy title. In the first go around this season, Dartmouth lost 79-67 to Penn and 76-48 to Princeton. Having the home-court advantage this weekend will help but the Big Green should not be expected to wake up Sunday morning still sporting only two league losses. "We haven't proven we can beat Penn and Princeton and we have to do that," Faucher said. "I don't know if we are good enough to beat them. · Despite the hoopla surrounding Princeton's loss, neither Penn nor Princeton's outlook has changed much. Both teams still control their own destiny and Penn still will likely need to win at Jadwin in order to take the title. "Even before the weekend started you are still in control of your own destiny even after losing to Princeton, but having Yale knock them off makes it one game easier," Penn guard Matt Langel said. The loss does, however, make it more likely that the Penn-Princeton season finale will have title implications. Penn previously thought it needed to be perfect in its other Ivy League games to stay alive, but now the Quakers can drop one of their next four Ivy games and still be in the hunt when their bus pulls up to Jadwin Gymnasium. Princeton, meanwhile, can lose again and still win at home the final night of the season to force a one-game, neutral-site playoff. Since Ivy play began officially in 1957, there have been six playoffs to break a tie, with Princeton playing in each one and posting a 3-3 mark. Princeton has played Penn in each of the last three playoff games -- 1980, 1981 and 1996. The Quakers won in 1980 but the Tigers have grabbed the last two. · Once again Penn and Princeton are helping each other through the Ivy season by being travel partners. It's tough enough to play Penn and Princeton individually, but it's even more burdensome to always have to do it on back-to-back nights. "We knew [Yale] was either going to come out and have a great confidence level, or maybe they'd be a little bit flat, but probably not somewhere in between," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We talked about coming out with the same intensity as we had [against Princeton," Yale forward David Tompkins said. "Unfortunately it turned out to be all talk because we came out flat."
A tale of two halves for M. Hoops
(11/18/98 10:00am)
The Penn men's basketball team was unable to pull of an upset in the final minutes against Kansas. Max Falkenstien, the radio voice of the Kansas Jayhawks for the past 53 seasons, has always wanted to call a game from the storied Palestra. Finally getting his wish almost cost his team its No. 8 national ranking. The return of Penn frontcourt players Geoff Owens and and Frank Brown was nearly enough last night to topple No. 8 Kansas at the Palestra, but the Jayhawks held on for a 61-56 victory in front of 7,852 boisterous Quakers fans. Penn had a chance to tie the game when it took possession down three with 23.1 seconds to play, but the Quakers (0-1) could not find an open player on the perimeter. Penn forward Jed Ryan forced a three-point shot which rolled out of bounds with 1.9 seconds to play. Jayhawks freshman guard Jeff Boschee, who scored Kansas' last five points of the game, sank two free throws with 0.3 seconds to play for the final margin of victory. The loss soured a stellar return by Brown, who scored a career-high 17 points off the bench. They were Brown's first points since last season's 13th game, when he scored two points in 11 minutes of action against Lafayette in a 74-68 Penn win. "The thing I am most pleased about is [Brown's] defense," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "The fact that he shot so well was no surprise." Dunphy has seen Brown in practice over the last month, but to the Penn fans who hadn't seen Brown in nearly a year, his 7-of-9 performance from the field and 3-of-4 from three point range was clearly the shock of the night. Brown's six-footer from the baseline with 8:37 to play gave Penn a 47-45 lead. It would be Penn's last. Kansas reeled off nine straight points over the next 2:43 to build its largest cushion of the game. Penn fought back behind the shooting of Matt Langel, who hit two threes, the second of which tied the game at 56 with 3:13 to play. Those two, however, were the only two he made in eight attempts from downtown. The Quakers three returning deep threats, Jordan, Langel and Jed Ryan were a combined 4-of-18 from long range on the night. "I don't think it was a moral victory because we felt we should have won the game," Jordan said. "You never want to be second best, and today we were second best." Kansas could have put the game away earlier, but Lester Earl missed two free throws after Jed Ryan committed a hold for his fifth personal, and Boschee only made one-of-two after Langel was called for player control with 2:25 to play. Kansas shot just 54.5 percent from the line for the night, but was buoyed by enjoying 22 opportunities from the charity stripe compared to Penn's four. Foul trouble plagued the Quakers throughout the second half, but the final blow came just after Langel tied the game when senior forward Paul Romanczuk was called for holding under the basket. His fifth foul left Penn without its floor leader inside. Ryan and Owens also played down the stretch with four fouls, allowing Kansas' seven-foot-center Eric Chenowith more space underneath the basket. The sophomore recovered from his 3-of-7 first half shooting woes to sink 3-of-4 in the second 20 minutes for the Jayhawks. The entire Kansas team, in fact, recovered from a first half which saw it shoot 25.9 percent to shoot 75 percent (15-of-20) after the break. "I was pleased with our defense," Dunphy said. "If we set a goal before the game it would have been 40 percent." The Jawhawks shot 46.8 percent for the game. The early moments of the game were highlighted by stellar Quakers defense, as Penn forced four Kansas turnovers. On the other end of the floor, Penn was running its offense, but could not find the netting, going just 2-of-9 from the field in the opening five minutes. Nevertheless, at the 12:50 mark Penn grabbed a 8-6 lead on a shot jumper by Jordan. The junior point guard struck again on Penn's next possession, to give Penn a 10-6 lead by the second TV timeout. Kansas moved within one to 14-13, but Kansas coach Roy Williams began jawing at the official near his bench, earning himself a technical -- just his seventh in 11 years as a head coach. Langel put in both free throws, and after the Jayhawks' eighth turnover, Ryan knocked down three more for a 19-13 lead with 5:29 on the clock. "We were bad, and yet give Penn credit for causing a lot of that too," Williams said. Brown then contributed his five points from the bench, including a three pointer with four minutes to play which put the Quakers up 22-14. Owens, the first half's leading rebounder with five, scored Penn's final bucket of the half with a tip-in of a Langel missed three pointer to give the Quakers a 26-19 edge at the break. "The first half was about as ugly as I can remember playing," Williams said. "Robertson had two fouls for boxing out, and it was the only two times we boxed out all half." If anything was holding the Quakers back, it was continuous misfires from downtown. The Quakers were just 2-of-13 from three-point range in the first half. Kansas, meanwhile, was 1-of-6 from long-distance as part of its anemic 7-of-27 shooting performance in the first 20 minutes. As Williams put it, for his team it was "the tale of two halves." Kansas came out firing in the second half, going on an 11-2 run early in the first three minutes. Chenowith was the big man inside, scoring twice and playing strong defense against Owens to force two misses. A three-pointer by Robertson put Kansas ahead 33-30 before the first TV timeout of the half at 15:36. Penn was hurt by fouls, especially Jed Ryan's fourth, which came just 6:16 into the half with Penn leading 34-33. Brown, however, was far from finished. He followed his own missed jumper with a rebound, a layup and connected for three more from the top of the key to tie the game at 37 with 12:18 to play. It was not to be Brown, Owens, or Penn's night in the end, however. For the second time in as many games, Penn played admirably against the nation's No. 8, but could not end on top. With the return of Owens and Brown, plus the surprisingly aggressive play of sophomore Josh Sanger down low, the Quakers showed that their veteran team will provide plenty of excitement this year. Now that Max Falkenstein has made it to the Palestra after a 53 year journey, maybe he should think about hanging around for a while. This season is only starting to get interesting.
FOOTBALL NOTEBOOK: Penn football expects to bring down Harvard and the goalposts
(11/12/98 10:00am)
The Quakers are almost entirely healthy as they chase down their first Ivy League title since 1994. With the Penn football team facing Harvard Saturday at Franklin Field with a chance to wrap up a share of the Ivy League title, final preparations are being made -- the team is running through its plays one more time, and students are making the toast and ordering the kegs. The Quakers are in a position to win an Ivy title for the first time since 1994, when they defeated, who else, Harvard. And given the post-game opportunities for celebration, students are in position to sit through an entire football game without leaving early. · Will the real Harvard please stand up? The Crimson started off the 1998 season with four straight losses, including a 24-0 stinker to open the season against Columbia. Then, Harvard went 4-0 with three Ivy wins, most importantly a 23-22 win at Princeton on October 24. Last week, the old Harvard reemerged, losing 27-6 to Brown. Quarterback Rich Linden has thrown only three TDs, launching six interceptions in the process. Meanwhile, the Ivy League's leading rusher a year ago, Chris Menick, is more than 450 yards behind Penn's Jim Finn for the conference lead. · If the game is close in the final minutes, Penn fans will be thankful that Franklin Field has astroturf. Sophomore kicker Jason Feinberg has been solid on the fake stuff, and less than automatic when divots start flying. Last week he was two from 19 and 32 yards out, but barely got the ball of the ground on two from 46 and 34. "I think those are kicks I would like to forget about," Feinberg said. "I'm looking forward to redeeming myself against Harvard." "I don't know what it is. I practiced on grass all summer, but for some reason I just stink on grass. Thank God Cornell and Penn are turf. Coming off a bad game things are a little more tense. I'm just concentrating on my mechanics." "The one that concerns me is the 36-yarder," Bagnoli said. "We feel that he is up to the ability level where from 40 and in he should be very consistent. For a sophomore in his first year of kicking, he's been solid." · Speaking of splitting the uprights, the players are not exactly lining up behind Public Safety's request to keep fans off the field after the game. "It's a tradition. I don't know how they are going to stop all those kids from rushing on the field," senior co-captain Joe Piela said. "I want to tear them down. I want to experience that," junior wide-receiver Brandon Carson said. "That is one of the big reasons I want to win. I want to throw them in the Schuylkill. I'll go in and get changed." Bagnoli, well aware of who is signing his checks around here, pleaded the fifth. The only other person who wasn't gung-ho on the idea yesterday was basketball center Geoff Owens, who cited his 6'11" frame's ability to be easily spotted by security cameras as one reason he might not participate in any post-game celebrations. · Penn is finally getting healthy at the time when it counts most. Only offensive lineman Matt Bane will be out for Saturday's game. Harvard may not be so fortunate, as coach Tim Murphy said yesterday that Menick may not make the trip with the team due to an ankle injury suffered in last week's game. · "Brown has a lot of good wide receivers, but I think the first six of us are better than anybody in the league," Carson said of Penn's diverse corps of wideouts. "No matter who is in there, [the defense] can't key on one person." The same can be said of Penn at the quarterback spot, where Finn has spelled Rader on several occasions and thrown two touchdown passes in the last four games. The halfback pass is easily the play of the year in the Ivy League. It has worked to perfection in each of the last four Penn games, twice by the Quakers and twice by opponents. Not to be outdone, Harvard used the play on Princeton three weeks ago. "It's tough. You are usually flying around, and you see run, and you come up quick, and the next thing you know they are throwing the ball over your head," Piela said. "Being that it has happened a couple times already this year and that Harvard has done it to us the past two years, we are definitely going to be looking for something like that. They even run it on first down." "The whole problem is more and more people are going to an eight man pressure defense," Bagnoli said. "As soon as you put the eighth guy in the box, it really puts your corners on an island. Any kind of play-action really puts pressure on those kids to make plays."
Second half borders on absurd for Football
(10/26/98 10:00am)
The Penn and Brown football teams scored 10 straight touchdowns in Saturday's 109 point offensive showcase. PROVIDENCE, RI. -- Call it a track meet, a horse race, ridiculous, incredible, electrifying or mortifying. It doesn't matter, because there is no way to aptly describe what took place during the second half at Brown Stadium on Saturday. Brown's last second 58-51 victory on Saturday was unlike any Ivy League game played before. The closest thing to the 109 points scored Saturday was a 1982 defensive struggle between Dartmouth and Columbia which ended with the Big Green on top 56-41. Not counting a fumbled kickoff by Brown with 11 minutes left in the game, a touchdown was scored on the teams' final ten possessions. If the game had gone into overtime -- as it appeared it would when Penn tied the game with 44 seconds left -- the scoreboard operators would have run out of room. Another sign of the day? Brown let a pair of four-year-old boys play with the deserted kicking nets on the sidelines, having given up on the notion of ever needing them again. In the fourth quarter alone, Bears quarterback James Perry completed 12-of-14 passes for 160 yards and three touchdowns as part of a 30-point fourth quarter outburst by his team. On the game, Perry threw for 470 yards and 5 touchdowns without throwing an interception or taking a sack. Penn's offense was no slouch either, as Jim Finn ran 17 times for 130 yards and four touchdowns in the fourth quarter. For the day, Finn set a school record with six touchdowns, and was second all-time with 259 yards on the ground. Terrence Stokes ran for 273 yards against Princeton in 1993. Of course, with every yard gained a yard was given up, meaning the teams returned to their locker rooms with defensive numbers as atrocious as their offensive numbers were spectacular. By the start of the fourth quarter, all 4,438 people in the Homecoming day crowd knew what each team would do. Everyone on the sidelines knew also -- even the cheerleaders who spent the whole game with their back turned to the field. It didn't matter. Every time Finn had the ball, he would grab a couple blocks and bust right through the line and into the secondary. When it came time for a touchdown, Finn would add a couple cuts and make sure the ball got across the line. On one touchdown run in the fourth quarter, he would have scored even if it had been a game of two-hand touch. Brown's defense was absurd, although Brown coach Phil Estes used his right as the winner to deflect all questions about his defense and laud his offense, which deserved every accolade it received. With enough time in the pocket to survey the field, study for a midterm and throw a picnic, Perry was dominant when Brown had the ball. Thanks to the fine hands of All-American Sean Morey and game-winning pass catcher Steve Campbell, Perry comfortably floated balls down the sidelines and over the Penn secondary. On Brown's first possession of the second half, Morey used a quick hitch move to draw Quakers corner Hasani White towards him before sprinting past him for a 19-yard touchdown pass. The same outside move was used by Brown receivers all half, as Penn coach Al Bagnoli rotated every Penn secondary player in and out of the lineup. "We ran out of answers," Bagnoli said. "We tried four man, five man, six man pressure. We didn't have any answers. It was a severe breakdown in the entire defense." Breakdown or no, there is no use pummeling the Quakers defense for its incomprehensible meltdown. Had Penn been the last team with the ball, there is little doubt the Quakers would have walked away with the win, making the defense's play irrelevant. Better to marvel at the 1,066 yards of total offense, and pray that it is a long time before two Ivy teams score another 109 points.
COLUMN: A view from the Porch
(10/08/98 9:00am)
No longer the endearing underdog Facing a regionally ranked Seton Hall team, the Quakers threw away a 2-0 lead, but came back to win 3-2 in overtime after junior forward Andrea Callaghan put nice pass from Jackie Flood into the corner of the net five minutes into the first 15-minute extra session. Callaghan's feet saved her mouth. Tuesday, Callaghan was quoted in this paper as saying, "Seton Hall is regionally ranked, and when we beat them it's going to be a big victory." It was a big victory, but the two (and nearly three) late goals the Quakers gave up took a lot of luster off a win the Quakers had to get to stay alive for NCAA consideration. No matter what the final record, the 1998 season is a watershed for the women's soccer program. For the first time, the team must face the reality that it is no longer the endearing underdog of a year ago. Now they, and everyone else, expect them to win. "We're the hunted team now, whereas last year we did the hunting. Penn is the big game to get up for," Penn coach Patrick Baker said before the first home game. In the games where they are the hunted, Penn is fairing quite nicely. The Quakers swept through its first five games with a cumulative score of 18-0. "If people would have told us that we would have been unbeaten and not scored on before playing Harvard back in August, I would have told them, without a doubt," Penn coach Patrick Baker said last Thursday. But in the three games where Penn wasn't a heavy favorite -- Cornell, Harvard and Seton Hall -- the team has a loss, a tie and a near disaster. Problem is, until yesterday, the team hadn't beaten anyone. It even tied Cornell, who isn't even an "anyone." It's time the team accepts that being 7-0 against mostly weaker non-league competition doesn't count for anything compared to its 0-1-1 record in the league. The Harvard game represents the best example of a gap that still remains -- both in words and deeds. "You want them to step on the field and say 'this is ours,'" Harvard coach Tim Wheaton said Monday. "I hope we aren't considered arrogant, but there is a little bit of arrogance you want." "I want [my players] to know they are a good team," Baker said on Monday. "I think that is important. But we don't portray an air of arrogance like Harvard." Harvard arrogant? Maybe. After all, following its game against Yale this year, Crimson senior Naomi Miller told The Harvard Crimson, "Our defense is always awesome. I love watching them play. I don't see another defense in the country that is as good as ours." But Harvard has backed up its talk. The three-time defending Ivy champion Crimson stepped on the field last Saturday and squeaked out 2-1 by finishing their rare scoring chances, keeping their mouths and the team undefeated in the league, although barely. What about Penn's arrogance? For all the non-league goals and wins, the team is one game away from being eliminated from Ivy League title contention and a possible NCAA berth. The tournament is expanding from 32 to 48 teams this year, but with 22 bids going to conference champions, there isn't a lot of extra room for at large berths. A loss to No. 10 Dartmouth on Saturday will almost certainly leave Penn at best in third place in the Ivy League at the end of the year -- one spot too far down the pecking order to grab an NCAA berth. Dartmouth coach Kelly Basius-Knudsen and Harvard coach Tim Wheaton, whose teams will both definitely qualify for the NCAAs, agree that while getting a third Ivy team in the NCAA is possible, it is unlikely. "Everyone expects us to be the best team, but what people don't realize is that two years ago we were at the bottom of the Ivy League," Baker said September 28. The women's soccer program should be proud of everything it has accomplished the past few seasons, but that era of the program is over. A new generation of expectations has arrived, and the team is still struggling to get used to it. "Do I think we can win every game left? Yes," Baker said on Monday. The team has the talking part down. Now it just needs to work on the winning part.
COLUMN: A View from the Porch
(10/01/98 9:00am)
Attendance won't tip Richter's scale He should grab a clipboard and a whistle. Richter's vision is admirable, and his plans look to be backed with honest effort and enthusiasm, but ultimately Richter has limited ability to increase fan support. Richter admits this to a degree, but it is important to look at just how important winning is to increased fan support. Richter's focus lies primarily with Penn's two marquee sports, football and basketball. Women's basketball has never had a winning program and only limited tradition compared with the 100-plus years of football and men's basketball, so there is not a lot of relevant data to draw from. Based on the numbers from the Athletic Communications Department, which keeps stats of its estimated football attendance since 1970, two factors show themselves to have a significant effect on football attendance. Neither factor will be Bill Richter's friend this year. One is schedule. Attendance is down every other year when Penn plays only three Ivy League home games. It will be worse this year, as one of those three games, against Columbia, will be played during fall break. The only way to fix this imbalance would be to add a ninth Ivy League team, which is preposterous, or to add games of local interest, which thankfully will occur beginning in 1999 when Penn will play Villanova. The other factor affecting attendance, also out of Richter's control, is a team's winning percentage. Penn won an unprecedented five straight Ivy League football titles from 1982 to 1986. In 1982, Penn averaged 26,828 fans for its three Ivy games. In 1984, Penn averaged 29,364 fans -- almost a 10 percent increase. After three straight sub-.500 league records, attendance at 1992 Ivy League home games dipped to an average of 16,128. By 1994, Penn was in the midst of a 24-game winning streak and saw its crowd support for Ancient Eight battles rise back to an average of 18,610, despite hosting Columbia during fall break. This season therefore poses severe difficulties for Richter's first attempt at new marketing schemes. The Quakers haven't won the title since '94, they have a poor home schedule and they were absolutely embarrassed in their first home outing of the season -- a 34-18 loss to Richmond. Men's basketball shows similar trends. Big 5 games and Princeton still routinely sell out. It is actually the other Ivy games that draw the least attendance, as there is little local interest. Currently, Ivy weekends routinely average around 3,000 fans per game, excluding the 8,700 that show up for Princeton. In 1993 and '94, during Penn's last period of dominating hoops, average attendance numbered over 5,000 per game. Luckily for Richter, while football is a nightmare to market in 1998, men's basketball is ready to boom. Not only are the Quakers co-favorites to win the Ivy League title, but non-league contests such as Kansas and Temple should have even marginal fans standing in line for season tickets for the '99 Ivy season. As a result, basketball numbers should be more favorable to Richter's marketing plans. All of these numbers are not meant to say that we should not try Richter's ideas or that he is foolhardy to even try attracting more fans to athletics. It is important for the Athletic Department to show that Penn is serious about drawing fans. And when it is successful in producing raucous cheering sections, it not only improves team performance but also fosters a greater sense of community on campus. What the numbers do show is that while Penn students like free T-shirts and giveaways, what they really want to see are Ivy League titles.
COLUMN: A View from the Porch
(09/24/98 9:00am)
Thanks for showing up now go home Why? The Richmond Spiders, this week's opponent, couldn't keep its dance card in order. Penn was coming off a 1993 season which saw it go a perfect 10-0. With sophomore DeRosa ready to start at quarterback and wide receiver Miles Macik coming back for his junior season, the Quakers seemed primed for another 10-0 year. Then, in late May 1994, Richmond called to say it was sorry, but apparently its schedule and that of its Yankee conference mates (now the Atlantic 10 Football Conference) had gotten a bit mixed up, so it wouldn't be available to play on the long since agreed to October 1 date. College football schedules aren't like high school dances, where as soon as you get dumped it's not too hard to find a new date two minutes later. Games are finalized years in advance, and to break a deal four months before the season leaves the left-out team in an impossible position. To Penn's credit, the Athletic Department met with a number of schools to strike a deal to play on October 1. Liberty and Hofstra wanted to play, but had too much honor to ditch their previously scheduled opponents. And an attempt to play St. Mary's in California on Thanksgiving ran aground due to logistical problems from both schools. So on Saturday, October 1, 1994, the Quakers were left in their street clothes with the best seats in the house for the Penn State-Temple game being played on Franklin Field. If there was any doubt that Penn had some frustration following its week off, it humiliated its next foe, poor Holy Cross, 59-8. The Quakers went 9-0 in '94, won another Ivy title and extended their record win streak to 21 straight games dating back to 1992. That's certainly not a season to complain about, but as Al Bagnoli said at the time, his kids work all year and only play 10 games. To suddenly only have nine is a big deal. Part of the big deal is what the nine-game season left on the record book. DeRosa left Penn following the '95 season with 3,885 yards, just 69 fewer than Jimmy McGeehan's school record. Macik left fewer than 100 yards shy of the career receiving yardage mark. Saturday, only a handful of fifth year seniors will have memories of their cancelled game, and none of them would have seen any significant playing time. Still, there are a few links remaining from Penn's non-game. Senior tailback Jim Finn is best friends with DeRosa. On the other side of the ball, Chuck Boone, Richmond's athletic director and the man ultimately responsible for the game cancellation, will be wandering the Spiders' sidelines. Regardless, the team should have enough pride in its history to stick up for its brethren of years past. It doesn't matter what the reasons for cancellation were, Penn football was cheated. The players, coaches and even the record books were wronged in 1994. Most of the 1998 Quakers know all too well how it feels to be the victimized by the record book and by forces out of their control. As this year's football team expunges the demons of '97, it can also stick it to the villains of another bleak moment in recent football history. Set the record straight on Saturday. And don't invite them back.
COLUMN: A View from the Porch
(09/17/98 9:00am)
A circus without a ringmaster Meet Robert Koonce, formerly the Athletic Department's central conduit for linking the athletic world of 33rd Street to the academic world of College Green. Meet Robert Koonce, the newly hired associate athletic director for student services at Tulane University in New Orleans. Welcome to a circus without a ringmaster. The bureaucracy that exists at this University is astounding, especially for freshmen who are used to the smaller confines of their high schools. There is also considerable bureaucracy within the Athletic Department, as more than two dozen varsity programs with about 1,000 athletes try to coordinate a variety of daily tasks. Mix the two, and the result can be overwhelming for new students. While there are plenty of quality reasons that Penn currently does not have an academic coordinator for the Athletic Department, it nevertheless seems stunning that a school still feeling the hurt of academic compliance issues can start a school year without a definitive point person guiding student-athletes toward appropriate academic resources. Koonce's job was two-fold. One, he was responsible for sending students who needed academic advising help or other services to the appropriate University office. Two, he was responsible for making sure that academically qualified recruited athletes were admitted to the University. Athletic Director Steve Bilsky estimated that only 20 percent of Koonce's responsibilities were directed toward students who were enrolled in the University. Koonce's main function, Bilsky said, was to work with the admissions department. Currently, various members of the athletic administration have taken on Koonce's responsibilities until a new academic coordinator can be hired. At this point, the negative effects of not having an academic coordinator on hand for the opening of the fall semester have already been felt by students, coaches and administrators who have needed to do unfamiliar work in getting athletes accustomed to balancing academic and athletic schedules. Therefore, to rush the search at this point would be misguided as a new person would not adjust to the position in time to help current freshmen. As long as a replacement is here by the end of the month, there should be negligible effects on getting athletic recruits through the early admission process. Only if the search extends beyond that will the damage done to student-athletes extend to potential future student-athletes as well. To the Athletic Department's credit, there have as yet been no horror stories coming from athletes as the academic year gets underway. But to have no one in Koonce's old chair in time for the start of classes appears to be an incredible risk to take during a time period which Koonce described as "extremely busy" and "hectic." Koonce and Bilsky both agreed that Koonce kept Bilsky well informed of his application for the position at Tulane. Koonce said by June 18 he had been contacted by Tulane for an interview. Although Koonce was not confirmed for the job until July 27th, the date from which a search for a replacement could have begun should be considered to start from late June. That makes it three months the Athletic Department has seen go by without finding a replacement. Koonce pointed out that the search was probably slowed due to pre-set vacations and other conflicts, but this is a matter that is deserving of more urgency than is presently being shown. Bilsky said he would be concerned if a new person is not hired before early admissions selection begins in a few weeks. It will take time for a new individual to build relationships within the Athletic Department, the admissions department and the academic advising department. The bureaucracy is immense, and whomever is hired needs time to adjust. Unfortunately, the department is already at a point when there will be little to no time for the new coordinator to get his or her bearings. The University suffered last winter when clear lines of responsibility were not drawn and students were unknowingly allowed to slip through the cracks. Without a point person to steer student-athletes through the confusing maze of requirements needed to balance sport and study, the Athletic Department has again left its students and coaches in an unnecessary position.