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(04/18/01 9:00am)
On an overcast, unseasonably cool day at Murphy Field, the Penn baseball team outlasted St. Peter's, 13-12, in a back-and-forth midweek duel that lasted nearly three-and-a-half hours.
It may not have been pretty, but the Quakers (19-11) demonstrated resolve by rallying in the bottom of the ninth inning to sink the Peacocks (2-24).
"What can you say about this game?" Penn coach Bob Seddon said. "A team that's a winning team will find a way to pull that out, and we've been a winning team this year."
Penn sophomore shortstop Steve Glass drove in the winning run for the Quakers. With the score knotted at 12 and the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the ninth, the Quakers' No. 9 hitter stepped into the box.
He'd had a banner day at the plate up to that point, stroking a pair of RBI singles and lining out hard to the first baseman. He knew that he just needed to line the ball into the outfield to bring home the runner at third.
"I was just sitting on the fastball, looking to put the ball in the air," Glass said.
St. Peter's pitcher Derick Talty obliged, serving up a fastball that Glass sent deep into left-center, over a Peacocks outfield that was cheating in. The ball landed safely, and Penn catcher Jeff Gregorio raced home for the victory.
The 25-run game saw 34 hits, including a season-high 20 off the bats of the Quakers. All 13 of Penn's runs were scored individually; no more than two come across on any one play.
Seven Red and Blue batters had multiple-hit days off Peacocks pitching. Glass had four, while both Chris May and Nick Italiano had three for Penn.
The offensive star for the Peacocks was third baseman Michael Quevedo. The sophomore from Staten Island hit a two-run home run off of Matt Winn in the seventh to bring his team within a run before belting a two-RBI triple off Penn closer Nick Barnhorst in the ninth to give his team the temporary 12-11 lead.
"We didn't want to see that third baseman again," Seddon said of his mood while watching the ninth.
Barnhorst, who pitched the eighth and the ninth, failed to notch his seventh save but was credited with the win to make his record 1-0 on the year.
Yesterday's contest was wild from the start. The first pitch was delayed as the umpiring crew that was scheduled to do the game never showed. Luckily, Bill Haines, a college ump who was watching from the stands only because the game he was scheduled to officiate in Delaware was postponed, filled in for the missing crew of two all by himself.
St. Peter's head coach Dan Olear didn't exactly appreciate Haines' fill-in job.
In the top of the eighth, St. Peter's first batter made slight contact with a Barnhorst pitch. The ball, which looked like it might have been fouled off the plate or the batter's foot, didn't make it to the infield grass. Haines called it fair, and catcher Billy Collins threw to first base for the force out.
This caused Olear to erupt. He came charging out of his dugout and stopped with his face mere inches from Haines. Although he didn't go the Earl Weaver route of turning his cap backwards, he did about everything else, pointing his finger and covering home plate with dirt.
Haines justifiably threw Olear out, but that didn't prevent the second-year had man from complaining from the top of the stands at the Murph.
(04/13/01 9:00am)
Baseball players are notoriously superstitious, so today's Friday-the-13th doubleheader between Penn and Cornell will probably put a few of the Turk Wendell-types on edge.
This weekend's four-game series is much too important for triskaidekaphobia to get in the way, though. Four losses by either of these teams could sink their Ivy League title hopes, and a sweep could give the victor a huge boost in the right direction.
The Quakers enter the Friday-Saturday set with an impressive 16-9 overall record but a 3-5 Ivy League mark. Gehrig Division rival Cornell is 6-13 on the year and 2-4 in the league. Both teams are two games behind Gehrig leaders Princeton and Columbia.
Coach Tom Ford's Big Red -- who have never won the Gehrig Division since the advent of Ivy baseball in 1993 -- are coming off a 2000 season in which they went 11-9 against their Ancient Eight foes.
Although the Big Red are currently mired in a five-game losing streak, Cornell and the Quakers have had similar success against the rest of the Ivies this spring.
Like the Quakers, Cornell lost both ends of its doubleheader against Dartmouth, one close and the other in a blowout. Also like Penn, the Big Red split their double-dip with Harvard, winning a squeaker in the matinee, 3-1, and getting blown out of the water in the nightcap, 17-5.
On the whole, Cornell has had its share of ups and downs this season -- a doubleheader against Penn State in which it was outscored 39-5 and a 2-1 dogfight loss to national powerhouse Miami come to mind. Cornell does have a number of weapons it can rely on, however.
Junior Eric Rico, a la Penn junior Andrew McCreery, has performed well for his team both in the outfield and on the pitcher's mound. He is batting .314 with a team-leading five home runs, while also posting a 1-1 record as a mid-week pitcher for the Big Red.
Cornell senior third baseman Raul Gomez -- who, like Rico, hails from Miami -- leads the team with a .374 batting average.
The Cornell pitching staff has not been overly impressive in the early going this season. The Big Red staff carries a combined earned run average of 7.25, with opponents hitting .299 against them.
As far as numbers are concerned, Penn seems to have a clear advantage in most major categories. While Cornell is batting .281 as a team, the Quakers boast a .310 squad average. Penn has 246 hits compared to Cornell's 175. Also, the Red and Blue staff has pitched its way to a much-more-respectable 4.88 ERA.
And in contrast to Cornell's current five-game slide, Penn coach Bob Seddon's troops have won their last three, including a sweep of Yale and a convincing 10-3 victory over La Salle.
There's no guarantee who Penn will send to the hill in these outings, but McCreery, Ben Krantz and Mike Mattern have been the prohibitive top three all season. The fourth weekend starter is never set in stone, but pitching coach Bill Wagner's decision will probably come down to a choice between Dan Fitzgerald, who pitched a complete game win against Yale last weekend, and Matt Hepler, who got the nod in the fourth spot earlier this season and who looked solid against La Salle.
(04/11/01 9:00am)
As soon as La Salle right-hander Chris Hughes' first-pitch fastball made contact with Chris May's bat yesterday afternoon, there was no doubt where it was going.
The only question was whether it was going to hit a car.
Even though it's only 305 feet to the left field fence at La Salle's Hank DeVincent Field, a few daring souls do park in the lot just beyond the short porch.
Luckily for them, the Penn right fielder's screaming shot out of the ballyard landed short of the vehicles. The solo home run to lead off the top of the ninth inning did smash any hope that lingered in the hearts of the Explorers, however, and gave Penn its 10th run of the day.
"I haven't been seeing too many first-pitch fastballs lately," said May, who went 4-for-5 at the plate yesterday. "It looked like a beachball coming in."
Yesterday's 10-3 victory upped Penn's season record to 16-9 and dropped La Salle's mark to 8-18.
The Quakers were bestial at the plate against their Philly rivals, notching a total of 16 base hits on the day. Half of them came off the bat of either May or backup catcher Billy Collins.
Collins was also 4-for-5. In the second inning, the junior doubled home first baseman Ron Rolph. He added a pair of singles in the fifth and sixth before whacking a long triple over the head of the La Salle center fielder Kyle Williams to drive home two more in the eighth.
"I'm feeling better," Collins said. "I struggled a bit over the weekend. I worked on a few things with [assistant coach Kevin] O'Connor, staying back and some other things, and it paid off today."
At the other half of the battery, senior pitcher Matt Hepler got the win for the Red and Blue. It was his fourth victory of the season.
Hepler, who pitched the fourth, fifth and sixth innings for Penn, yielded two of La Salle's runs, but his stuff was good enough to pitch him out of bigger trouble.
For one thing, Hepler placed his pitches well, doing an especially good job of painting the inside corner.
More importantly, though, Hepler's off-speed stuff began to heat up as his three innings on the hill progressed. In the sixth, when he gave up the two runs, Hepler minimized the damage by striking out two Explorers on hard-biting breaking balls.
"His curveball definitely started working the third inning he was out there," Penn pitching coach Bill Wagner said.
Hepler had four strikeouts in three innings yesterday, as opposed to six K's in his previous 19 innings of work.
"This is the first game where I was able to strike out guys when I needed it," Hepler said.
Penn left-hander Paul Grumet started the game for the Quakers and hurled three innings of scoreless baseball. Matt Winn relieved Hepler and held the Explorers scoreless through the seventh and eight before handing the ball off to closer Nick Barnhorst.
Barnhorst gave up a run in the ninth, but safely shut the door on the Explorers.
To build the lead that propelled them to victory, the Quakers relied on a pair of three-run innings.
In the fifth, five hits put three up on the scoreboard for Penn. Nick Italiano, who went 3-for-4 with a walk on the afternoon, doubled a run homeward to start the mini-onslaught.
The eighth saw runs come in on the Collins triple and on an Italiano single. Freshman Bryan Graves also had one of his two hits in the penultimate inning.
(04/04/01 9:00am)
Last spring, Penn visited La Salle and came away with a 33-13 victory that, in terms of scoring, was more like a half of basketball than your average nine innings of baseball.
There were no such fireworks in yesterday's quick-moving, 4-3 Quakers win at Murphy Field. Instead, the Red and Blue simply hung on for a short and sweet midweek victory.
"In these midweek games you get a chance to work on some things that you need to be doing well, and that's what we did today," Penn senior first baseman Ron Rolph said.
The win upped Penn's overall record to 13-6 and capped off a 10-game homestand in which the Quakers went 7-3 at the Murph. The loss dropped La Salle's season mark to 5-16; the Explorers have fallen in seven of their last eight outings.
Senior Brian Burket started the game for Penn, pitching three scoreless, one-hit innings. The Quakers co-captain placed his pitches beautifully, yielding no walks and striking out two.
"He's been bothered by a back injury," Penn pitching coach Bill Wagner said. "It's real important for him to get a chance to get on the mound right now."
Quakers freshman right-hander Matt Winn came on to pitch the fourth, fifth and sixth innings and was credited with the win, bringing his season record to 2-0.
After Winn left the game with the score 4-2, Paul Grumet came on, retiring the side 1-2-3 in the seventh and giving up a solo home run to make it 4-3 in the eighth.
Grumet set up Penn closer Nick Barnhorst, who came on to pitch the ninth inning with a one-run lead. After a single, a walk and a sacrifice bunt put runners at second and third with one out, Barnhorst was able to bear down and strike out La Salle's Steve Harris on three pitches.
In the game's final at-bat, James Kelly checked his swing on a Barnhorst fastball, sending a grounder up the middle. Penn freshman second baseman Mike Goldblatt snagged the ball and made the tough throw just in time to nip Kelly at first base.
"It was real important that Barnhorst got that guy, because they had their three and four hitters coming up," Penn coach Bob Seddon said.
The save, which was Barnhorst's fifth on the year, set a new Penn record for saves in a season. It also brought the team's total number of saves to seven, which ties the all-time Penn mark.
"It's real nice to see [Barnhorst] do this," Wagner said. "He's always had a good fastball and slider, but things haven't worked out for him before this year. He worked really hard before this season, and it's good to see."
Penn got on the scoreboard first yesterday afternoon, scoring a run in the bottom of the second inning.
Quakers center fielder Andrew McCreery reached first and made it all the way to second on a throwing error. He scored on an RBI single by Rolph, who went 2-for-3 on the day.
The Red and Blue's next two runs came in the third. Goldblatt tripled to right field and then trotted home after a Steve Glass double. Glass, who batted leadoff in place of an injured Nick Italiano, scored on a Chris May bloop single to center two outs later.
Goldblatt, a freshman in his fourth start, went 3-for-3 at the plate with a run scored to increase his season average to .333.
Although he was brilliant with the stick, Goldblatt was both picked off and doubled up at first on a fly ball. The Quakers generally had some trouble on the basepaths, as two other runners were doubled up on fly balls on the day, another at first and a third at the plate.
"Those are the types of things that you work out in midweek games," Rolph said.
Penn has another game today at St. Joseph's at 3 p.m. Look for the Quakers coaching staff to give some different pitchers a chance to take the hill.
(03/30/01 10:00am)
Penn leadoff hitter and second baseman Nick Italiano may have a pulled left hamstring, but there's not much chance he'll miss action this weekend.
"I'd have to be in a wheelchair not to play," Italiano said.
The sophomore's injury might have been troublesome enough to keep him out of practice yesterday, but it certainly isn't sufficient to keep him off the diamond when Dartmouth and Harvard come to town for a pair of doubleheaders tomorrow and Sunday at Murphy Field.
This marks the first Ivy League weekend for all three teams.
Although both the Crimson and the Big Green play in the Ivy's Rolfe Division, Gehrig Division contender Penn knows that games against these two top-notch clubs will go a long way in determining how good the Quakers (11-3) really are.
"These two teams are strong, and they're always a good test," Penn coach Bob Seddon said.
While the Red and Blue have won nine of their last 10 en route to their best start in years, neither of this weekend's visitors to the Murph have been able to piece together more than three wins thus far this spring.
The Big Green won three of ten on a swing through California, while Harvard went 3-9 in Florida.
Those records can be misleading, however. Both Harvard and Dartmouth have the talent to take top honors in the Rolfe Division and in the Ancient Eight.
Coach Bob Whalen's Big Green won both their division and the league last year with a 28-13 overall record, and they return much of the talent that brought them to the summit.
Last year's Ivy League MVP Brian Nickerson returns at third base for the boys from New Hampshire. A fifth-year senior, Nickerson hit .372 and whacked a team-high 10 home runs last season. He's currently riding the crest of a nine-game hitting streak.
Ivy League Player of the Week Michael Levy has been knocking the cover off the ball this season. The senior catcher batted an eye-popping .647 last week with a triple, two doubles and a pair of homers.
Seddon's not sure who Dartmouth -- which split a doubleheader with Penn in Hanover last spring -- will send to the hill.
"I don't know who he'll pitch, maybe [John] Velosky," Seddon said. "He went 7-2 last year and we haven't seen him yet."
To counter whoever they put on the mound, Penn will start Mike Mattern in the matinee and Matt Hepler in the second game.
Unlike Dartmouth, which has had a week back at home since spring break, the Crimson are not even getting a chance to drop their bags off in Cambridge before starting their Ivy schedule.
Coach Joe Walsh's squad will fly to New York today before squaring off against Columbia on Saturday and heading down to the Murph on Sunday.
This hectic travel schedule may tire out the Crimson before starting pitcher Andrew McCreery throws the first pitch on Sunday.
"Two years ago, they had to do that [travelling], and it made them tired," Seddon said. "They beat us, 18-16...but you could tell that they were a tired team."
The Crimson may have found little success down South, but they grappled with high-quality programs like Big Ten squads from Ohio State and Northwestern.
The top of the Harvard rotation is very solid, as John Birtwell leads the way with a 1-1 record and an infinitesimal ERA of 0.64. Seddon is not sure whether the Crimson will unleash the aces at Columbia on Saturday or wait for the Quakers.
"They might pitch them against us, but that would be disrespectful toward Columbia," Seddon said. "You always want to win your first league game."
(03/26/01 10:00am)
In its first home action of the season, a resilient Penn baseball team swept a pair of doubleheaders to up its season record to 10-3.
The Quakers, who have now won eight of their last nine, took two from West Chester on Saturday (7-2, 13-5) and swept Lehigh on Sunday (6-5, 7-3). Their 33-run output on the weekend naturally put Penn in good shape, but coach Bob Seddon's troops did more than merely overpower their opponents this weekend.
"They were all competitive games," Seddon said. "We're executing reasonably well, and that's why we were able to win. It's really tough to ever win all four in a weekend."
Penn's two wins against Division II West Chester were obviously welcome, but the highlight of the weekend had to be the two over Lehigh. In both games against the Engineers, the Quakers showed their resolve, coming from behind for the "W."
After five innings of Sunday's matinee, the squads were knotted at three, as Penn's Andrew McCreery and Lehigh's Brian Andalman did their best to keep the contest a pitcher's duel.
Things got rough for Penn in the top of the sixth, however. A double to the gap in right-center by Lehigh catcher Jeffrey Quiros and a throwing error by Penn third baseman Oliver Hahl put runners at first and second with one out. A passed ball put runners at the corners with Lehigh left fielder Matt Andrews at the plate.
Andrews hit a grounder at Penn second baseman Nick Italiano, who tossed it to shortstop Steve Glass for the force at the second base. But the inning-saving 4-6-3 double play short-circuited when the ball dropped out of first baseman Ron Rolph's glove. The runner scored from third, giving Lehigh a 4-3 advantage.
Engineers third baseman Matt Yarnold hit a long double to bring the runner all the way home from first in the ensuing at-bat, and that was all she wrote for McCreery. Junior right-hander Dan Fitzgerald came in to get the last out of the inning.
The Quakers went quietly in the bottom of the sixth, and Fitzgerald gave up no runs in the seventh, setting the stage for a last-licks rally by Penn.
Center fielder Randy Ferrell led the inning off with a stand-up double. Ferrell, whom Seddon dubbed the MVP of the weekend, went 5-for-9 and scored six runs in the four Penn wins.
Sensing the need for pop at the plate, Seddon sent usual DH Zac Hanan in to pinch hit for freshman Mike Goldblatt. The decision paid off, as Hanan sent a belt-high Andalman offering well over the fence in left field for a game-tying two-run blast.
"He threw me the same pitch twice," Hanan said. "The first time I swung and missed, and the second time I hit it out."
After two ground-ball putouts, the Quakers loaded the bases with a walk and a pair of singles to put McCreery at the plate. The Quakers starting pitcher -- who had also been playing DH all game -- hit a single past the second baseman to give Penn the victory, 6-5.
"He showed that he can help in more ways than one," Seddon said.
In Sunday's second game, Lehigh took a 3-2 lead in the second inning, which it held until Penn scored two in the bottom of the fifth on the strength of an Italiano RBI double and a Hanan sacrifice fly for a run.
Sophomore Ben Krantz pitched the first three innings for the Quakers but left after catching a line drive in the shin. He struck out four and yielded three runs.
Sophomore southpaw Paul Grumet got the win for the Quakers, pitching three key innings of scoreless relief. Closer Nick Barnhorst pitched the seventh, but he failed to get the save since Penn had already built a four-run advantage.
The Quakers really had no use for a closer in Saturday's wins over West Chester, as one explosive inning in each game spelled victory for the Red and Blue.
In the early game, it was a four-run fifth inning that propelled the Quakers to victory. Penn's seven-run output was more than enough for pitcher Mike Mattern, who went the distance for a three-hitter.
In the nightcap against the Rams, the Quakers erupted in the third inning for nine runs, four of which came on a grand slam by senior outfielder Chris May.
Senior right-hander Matt Hepler upped his season record to a perfect 3-0 with the win. Hepler went six, and senior Brian Burket pitched the final inning for the Red and Blue.
(03/23/01 10:00am)
There might be a bright side to the chilly showers of early spring -- but not for a college baseball team.
While March and April might ensure that greens stay lush well into the summer, they do nothing but deprive a team of chances to log much-needed innings on the field.
Forecasters are predicting rain for at least part of this weekend, but coach Bob Seddon doesn't want to hear it. The wet stuff prevented the Quakers (6-3) from playing UMBC on Wednesday, and he knows that Penn needs to get back in action after wrapping up a nine-game Florida swing on St. Patrick's Day.
"I think the field will let us play all four games this weekend," Seddon said as his team practiced indoors yesterday. "We lost one game to rain, and we really just need to get out and play."
The Red and Blue are scheduled to play a pair of doubleheaders this weekend, against West Chester on Saturday and Lehigh on Sunday. Both double-dips get under way at noon at the Penn Baseball Stadium at Murphy Field.
The Division II Golden Rams, under the tutelage of first-year head man and former Drexel assistant Chris Calciano, are 9-9-1 on the year.
"For many years West Chester had a very good baseball tradition, then they hit on hard times," Seddon said. "With Chris, they're going to start turning things around, and you can already see that."
Having played a full 10 games more than the Quakers, the Golden Rams have shown definite signs of improvement from their 11-38 season in 2000. West Chester is hitting for a .281 team average, while its pitching staff is doing what it needs to keep them in games.
Towering senior right-hander Steve Ulmer has been especially impressive this spring. The 6'9" pitcher is 3-1 with a team-low 2.89 ERA and a 2.33 strikeouts-to-walks ratio.
The Engineers from Bethlehem, Pa., will make the trip south to the banks of the Schuylkill sporting an uninspiring record of 3-7. The only opponent that Lehigh and Penn have both played this season is Northern Illinois. The Huskies beat the Engineers, 12-5, and lost to the Quakers, 6-1.
That said, Lehigh, which beat Penn 5-4 last year, seems to always manage to give the Quakers a run for their money. The Engineers also have 2000 Division I batting champion Pat Hollander returning to the lineup. The senior All-American, who hit an eye-popping .486 last season, is batting a much more human .280 this season. But he will still be a concern for the Penn pitching staff.
With Harvard and Dartmouth, the teams that he considers tops in the Ivy League, looming on the schedule just one week away, Penn pitching coach Bill Wagner hopes his staff will get a chance to exercise its arms this weekend.
"We didn't get enough work down in Florida, so we definitely want to get all the games in," Wagner said. "There just weren't enough games to play. We were going to try to pitch some different people [against UMBC]."
Although Wagner planned to try new things on Wednesday, he'll send four experienced starters to the mound this weekend. Junior Mike Mattern will get the nod in the first game on Saturday, while senior Matt Hepler will take the nightcap. On Sunday, sophomore Andrew McCreery will start things off, and Ben Krantz will take the hill for the second game.
Senior Nick Barnhorst, who has more saves (four) thus far this season than any other Ivy League team has wins, will look to resume his role of closer at home this weekend.
(03/08/01 10:00am)
While on a California spring training swing two years ago, Penn baseball coach Bob Seddon asked Jeff Gregorio if he would take the field at third base. A consummate team player, Gregorio was naturally up for the challenge.
"I told him, 'Sure, I'll play third,'" Gregorio said. "I can field fine, and I was willing. The only thing was that I didn't have a glove."
You see, Gregorio doesn't own a fielder's glove -- he hasn't had need for one since the wiser Bush was in the White House. For more than a decade, all that's kept Gregorio company on the field is a trusty mitt.
"I've been catching for something like 10 or 12 years," Gregorio said.
Although he's been donning the tools of ignorance since he was in Little League, in this, Gregorio's fifth year in the Quakers dugout, he's much more than just the backstop.
He's the backbone.
He's the starting catcher; he'll call most of the pitches when he's on the field; he bats clean-up; and he provides the kind of senior leadership that's intangible but extremely valuable.
"He definitely leads by example," said Nick Barnhorst, a Daily Pennsylvanian sports writer and Gregorio's roommate on roads trips. "He leads by the way he plays and by his dedication to the team."
Gregorio caught in 30 of Penn's 41 games last season, and he was a DH in seven other contests. His return to the lineup this season therefore brings an important dose of consistency.
"Him coming back is big," Seddon said. "You're as good a team as you are up the middle... so keeping an experienced catcher is real important."
If last season is any indication, Gregorio will be just as integral to the Quakers when he's at the plate as when he's behind it.
Gregorio led the team in RBIs (46) in 2000, while tying for the team lead in triples (3) and home runs (6). En route to a .305 batting average, Gregorio had more than his fair share of monstrous outings. In an unbelievable 33-13 win over La Salle, Gregorio hit for the cycle, recording six hits and 11 RBIs.
Things haven't always come up roses for Gregorio, however. The reason he has the chance to take a fifth year on campus is that he sat out all of the 1998 season.
"I had some back trouble coming off a summer where I played something like 60 or 70 games, and between that and lifting [weights], I put a lot of pressure on my back," Gregorio said.
Although his season on the sidelines must have been somewhat trying, it has enabled him to keep things on a very even keel this school year.
"It's been great," the International Relations major said of his fifth year. "Right now, my class schedule is really relaxed. It's been going real well."
His back is also doing fine these days -- Gregorio's made his doctors happy by losing a little of the extra weight he had sophomore year. That said, catching three games per weekend puts strains on a player's body that few can really understand.
"It's not the knees even; it's my arm. In a seven-inning game, pitchers will throw maybe 120 pitches, so that's 120 throws not counting all of their warm-ups," Gregorio said. "And that's only in a seven-inning game."
Often, Gregorio will be asked to catch two nine-inning games and a seven-inning tilt on a given weekend.
As if the physical gauntlet weren't enough, Gregorio is taking on a new mental burden this year -- one which he welcomes with open arms.
"This year, I'm expected to call a lot more of the pitches," Gregorio said. "I'm more comfortable calling them."
Last season, long-time pitching coach Bill Wagner called a majority of Penn's pitches from the dugout. This year, with Gregorio's expertise behind the mask, the coaching staff can hand the job largely over to him.
According to Seddon, this move has precedent. Two of his catchers in the early and mid 90's, Ben Breier and Rick Burt, also called their own games.
Penn's backup catchers -- junior Bill Collins and freshmen Dan Goldstein and John Slaughter -- won't be calling many pitches, but they will have the benefit of learning from a well-schooled veteran.
It's not Gregorio's sole responsibility to train these young receivers, but he's ready and willing to do the work.
Just like he was ready to play third base.
(03/02/01 10:00am)
By the the end of tonight's men's basketball action, the Ivy title hopes of both Brown and Yale might be dead and buried.
Then again, if both the upstart Bears (13-11, 7-4 Ivy League) and Elis (10-14, 7-4) manage to win at home tonight, there will be a four-way tie at the top of the league and the stage will be set for a wild finish to the Ancient Eight season.
The permutations are heady, but Penn (11-15, 8-3) knows that a pair of wins on its I-95 swing can go a long way to securing a third-straight Ivy crown.
"We definitely want to take care of these games," Penn sophomore forward Ugonna Onyekwe said. "We can't worry about what Princeton does or whatever else happens. These are two games that we have to have."
Penn will have its hands full when visiting this weekend's pair of Ancient Eight challengers. Brown and Yale are a combined 14-3 overall and 8-1 in Ivy League play on their home courts.
The Bears started their league season an unimpressive 1-4, but they are riding the crest of a six-game conference winning streak into tonight's showdown with Penn at 7 p.m. at the Pizzitola Sports Center.
This streak, the longest in the league this season, marks the first time Brown has swept three straight Ivy weekends since 1975. Last weekend, the Bears squeaked out a pair of two-point victories at Columbia and Cornell.
In the first showdown between these teams this season -- a 59-50 Penn win at the Palestra on February 3 -- the Bears hung tight, but never really put the Quakers in much jeopardy.
Brown coach Glen Miller, however, thinks his players have undergone some changes since then.
"We've been improving gradually the entire season," Miller said. "I think we've become a much better team than when we played Penn at Penn. And we're a much better team at home, as far as I'm concerned."
Brown's leading scorer against Penn the first time around was 6'5" sophomore forward Earl Hunt, who tallied 15 points on the night.
Hunt currently leads the Ivies in scoring (20.2 points per game) and is just 55 points away from becoming the first player in Ancient Eight history to amass 1,000 points before the end of his sophomore season.
Saturday night in New Haven, the Quakers will have to keep their eyes on a slightly larger target -- the 6'11" frame of Yale senior center Neil Yanke.
Yanke, who was named Ivy League co-Player of the Week on February 19 after scoring 38 points and making 17-of-22 shots in wins over Harvard and Dartmouth, missed Yale's first game against Penn due to injury.
At the Palestra on February 2, the Red and Blue beat the Elis, 61-51, in a game that was nip-and-tuck most of the way.
According to Elis coach James Jones, his team could have had a much better shot of winning that game if Yanke had been healthy.
"Right now, Neil is playing like one of the best players in the league. When we were playing without him before, it was like playing without Ugonna or Lamar [Plummer] or Geoff [Owens] or one of their other big players," Jones said. "With him back, we're a different team."
Penn coach Fran Dunphy doesn't seem overly concerned about the presence of Yanke in the lineup.
"Defensively, he adds something to their team," Dunphy said. "He's not the greatest shot-blocker in the league, but he's a presence. He's another guy that they have in the post."
Yale and Brown's success on their home courts this season should be worrisome for the Quakers. Penn has gone 6-1 at home this season against Ivy League competition -- with its one loss coming at the hands of arch-rival Princeton -- but the Red and Blue are just 2-2 on the road in the Ancient Eight.
With three road games left on their schedule, the Quakers will need to do better than .500, if they want to three-peat as league champions.
(02/14/01 10:00am)
Before this season began, Penn men's basketball coach Fran Dunphy walked into Hutchinson Gymnasium to talk to the 200-some-odd diehard student fans who were camping out for season tickets in the Line.
Dunphy voiced his gratitude for the show of support and expressed a sentiment that I -- as a reporter -- heard throughout the early portion of this year's schedule.
"I'd ask that you be patient with us," Dunphy said.
He knew that his team was young and unproven. Dunphy was pretty sure that his charges weren't going to come out of the gate looking just like his two previous teams, which had gone a combined 27-1 in Ivy League play.
And, sure enough, they started slow, losing their first eight. Throughout the first 21 games of 2000-2001, Penn fans waited with baited breath for the Quakers to shift into gear, to finally become the team that will capture another Ivy crown.
Perhaps the fans thought that last night's game against Princeton would mark the turning point for Penn.
Perhaps they thought that the "real" Quakers would emerge on the Palestra hardwood.
Unfortunately for the Penn faithful, last night's ugly 67-53 loss to Princeton was yet another indication that this is still not a team that can overpower the Ivy League.
"We're still not exactly sure of who we are," Dunphy said after last night's loss.
If the Quakers are a winning team at heart, it's about time that they start to prove it. If they are still having an identity crisis, it's about the time of year where they need to resolve it. I think that Penn has the weapons to win out, but there's no time to waste.
There were moments last night when it looked as if the Quakers were about to turn the corner, but they never did.
With 4:11 showing on the Palestra scoreboard, Koko Archibong calmly sunk a pair of free throws after being fouled on the other end of the court by the Tigers' Konrad Wysocki.
The Quakers were in the double bonus, and Archibing's freebies had cut the Princeton lead to six points (43-37) for the first time since there were 12 minutes left in the first half.
The crowd erupted, and the Palestra became the acoustic crucible that it always has the ability to be.
The crowd stayed thunderous throughout Princeton's ensuing possession until Ahmed El-Nokali drove and sunk a layup with 3:40 left to go. Penn would never get the lead down to six again.
Penn did a generally admirable job on the defensive end. Yes, the Quakers were outrebounded on the defensive glass, 28-20. But they held the Orange and Black -- who were hitting 51.8 percent of their field goals against the Ivy League before last night -- to 39.6 percent shooting from the field.
Sure, Princeton had many more good looks from behind the three-point arc than Dunphy and his staff might have liked, but it's undeniable that the real problems for the Quakers last night were on offense.
Penn only shot 34.0 percent on the night, but that number masks just how poorly the Quakers backcourt shot. Together, Penn starting guards David Klatsky and Lamar Plummer shot 3-for-18 from the field (16.7 percent), 1-for-10 from three-point territory (10 percent) and 0-for-4 from the free-throw line.
"[Penn] just missed shots," Princeton coach John Thompson III said. "They got open looks, but they just didn't go in."
In addition to shooting poorly, the Quakers truly looked out of sorts on offense throughout much of the night. Penn center Geoff Owens' 15 points came mostly from deft play down low, but Penn couldn't find a way to get the ball into the low post enough to keep up with the Tigers.
When the Red and Blue seemed like they had an offensive spark early on in the second half, it was due largely to aggressive dribble penetration.
This gave Penn fans reason to be hopeful, but it doesn't make the Quakers into a good offensive team.
Right now, Penn is in virtually the same position in which it found itself two years ago after a heartbreaking loss to Princeton at the Palestra. If they finish strong, they can still make the Tournament, but there is one major difference between last night's loss and collapse that the Quakers had in 1999.
While the first half that Penn played in the 1999 game was indicative of what was best about that Quakers team -- the fist pumping of Paul Romanczuk, the smart play of Michael Jordan, etc. -- nothing in last night's loss was quintessential Penn basketball.
All one saw was the inconsistency that has typified the play of the Red and Blue all season.
(02/06/01 10:00am)
When Penn and Villanova tip off at 7:30 tonight at the First Union Center, Big 5 history will be made.
And NCAA history may be soon to follow.
Tonight's contest marks the first time that a City Series game will be played on the hardwood of Philadelphia's largest basketball arena.
The game will also decide whether the Wildcats (12-8, 3-0 Big 5) can finish their Big 5 schedule as undefeated champions -- or whether the Quakers (7-11, 0-3) can eke out their first and only City Series win of the season.
Despite the Philly intrigue, Penn coach Fran Dunphy characteristically sees the contest as just another chance for a win.
"In all honesty, we're looking to win against Villanova," Dunphy said. "The fact that they could be 4-0 or that we might be 0-4 isn't really what we're thinking about."
Just as the City Series will be adding to its record books tonight, so too will the NCAA.
Villanova sophomore Gary Buchanan likes to call free throws "free points," and the 6'4" guard is doing his best to make good on each of his opportunities from the charity stripe.
After hitting a pair of second-half freebies in an 89-74 loss at the hands of Boston College on Sunday, Buchanan extended his consecutive free-throw streak to 63, one short of the NCAA Division I record established by Joe Dykstra of Western Illinois in 1981-82.
If Buchanan hits another pair against the Quakers tonight, he will take possession of the record and up his season mark from the line to 73-of-74 (98.6 percent).
"I think it's a great thing to see," Dunphy said of the potential record. "If you were to say that he gets the record and we win, I'd be very happy."
Buchanan's record-challenging shots might be fun for 'Nova fans to watch down on South Broad Street, but junior center Michael Bradley is undoubtedly the main attraction for the Wildcats these days.
The 6'10" transfer from Kentucky has become a darling of the national media by dazzling opponents with his shockingly efficient offensive prowess.
Against B.C. on Sunday, Bradley scored 26 points and grabbed 11 rebounds. He was 9-of-11 from the field (81.8 percent), marking the 11th time this season that Bradley has sunk better than 70 percent of his field goal attempts in a game.
Bradley's overall field goal percentage is 69.5, but if you throw out the 27 shots that he has taken from beyond the three-point line, he is connecting on a jaw-dropping 73.4 from two-point range. In Big East play, Bradley is averaging 24.2 points and 10.6 boards per contest.
"He's an extremely talented basketball player," Dunphy said. "We're going to have to deal with him, but we're not going to do a lot different from what we normally do against a great player. We can't focus fully on him and let guys like [Villanova forward] Ricky Wright score on us."
Tonight's contest marks Penn's final non-conference game on its schedule, and 'Nova looks somewhat vulnerable at this point in its campaign.
The Wildcats have lost their last three games and six of their last eight, due in large part to an inability to take care of the basketball. Villanova has turned over the ball 172 times in their past eight outings for an average of 21.5 give-aways per game.
That said, the Quakers are not about to apply much more full-court pressure than they usually do in order to exploit Villanova's recent turnover woes.
"We do press some in every game, and we're going to do that, and maybe press a little more if it's working," Dunphy said. "But we're not going to change what we do at this point in the season."
(01/29/01 10:00am)
Watching Penn's Dan Solomito confidently hit a trio of three-pointers on Saturday night was a little like watching Mario Mendoza hit for the cycle.
Solomito is a pretty solid college player, a big guard with a good nose for the basket. But his name -- or, more precisely, the Palestra chant of "Sol-o-mi-to" -- has an undesirable connotation for the 6'6" swingman.
Unfortunately for the Quakers junior, his last name has been synonymous with garbage time over his three seasons in red and blue. When Penn would build a hefty lead, the fans in the student sections would start chanting his name as a signal that the game was out of reach.
Solomito's not the second coming of Pete Maravich, but he doesn't deserve that chant anymore. His three-of-five shooting from behind the arc against St. Joe's should be taken as a sign to the Palestra fans to cut it out -- he's a nice player who can provide a spark if Fran Dunphy's team needs one.
But that's the problem with Penn right now -- that description of Solomito could fit nearly all of Dunphy's charges.
This is a team full of players who can show definite signs of excellence, but it's a squad without an ace-in-the-hole, without very much that it can rely on night in and night out.
In other words, as the Quakers head into the meat of their Ivy League season, they can't be very sure which of their numerous weapons will fire in a given contest.
This means that their Ancient Eight campaign is a difficult thing to predict. The Quakers have enough firepower to blow away the rest of the league, but they are also inconsistent enough to drop some of the close ones. I'd say 14-0 is more likely than 10-4, and 12-2 sounds about right.
But that's pure speculation. And given the unpredictability of Penn this season, it's just plain half-baked.
Lamar Plummer has been Penn's most consistent offensive threat in this, his senior season. The shooting guard, who is averaging 15.8 points per game, has demonstrated great range en route to an Ivy League-leading 59 three-pointers.
When the Red and Blue are in need of a big shot, Plummer's the guy who gets the first look -- and for good reason. On Saturday night, it was Plummer's jump shooting that helped Penn hang tight with the Hawks down the stretch.
In addition, it was a gutsy Plummer steal deep in the St. Joe's end with 1:34 left that evoked the most hope in the Penn faithful.
That said, there's no doubt that Plummer lives and dies by the jump shot. If the ball's not falling for him, there really isn't too much else that he can do for the Penn offense.
The Quakers' second-leading scorer, Ugonna Onyekwe, has been downright explosive at times this season -- he's had three games of 20 or more points.
But there are other nights when Onyekwe looks uncomfortable on the court, especially on the offensive end. Last night was one of those.
Asked about Onyekwe's sub-par 3-for-15 shooting from the field last night, Dunphy was clear:
"He hasn't shot well all year.," Dunphy said. "Just the little things like at the end of the game we were down five we didn't necessarily need him shooting that three, but he's still learning how to play. He doesn't have a great sense of every situation."
Sure, Onyekwe's athleticism will doubtless make a number of Ivy League forwards look like middle-schoolers this season, but he's not the kind of player that a team can bank on in the last two minutes of a tight game.
Penn center Geoff Owens also has the ability to make waves offensively. Heading into Saturday night's game, he was shooting a very impressive 64.8 percent from the field. He had 10 points last night, but he felt he could have done more.
Up and down their lineup, the Quakers sport players that can bite you when you're not looking.
And they do it in different ways every night.
Opponents wouldn't expect Adam Chubb to hit a three-pointer like he did last night in the second half, but he did. The Hawks probably didn't gameplan against Solomito's outside touch either.
With this season's Quakers, opposing coaches can't ever be sure which of Penn's weapons will surface on a given night.
As a result, other Ivy League teams have to be a combination of hopeful and fearful when they face off against the Quakers -- hopeful of an upset on an off night and fearful of what Penn can do if it puts things together.
(01/29/01 10:00am)
Watching Penn's Dan Solomito confidently hit a trio of three-pointers on Saturday night was a little like watching Mario Mendoza hit for the cycle.
Solomito is a pretty solid college player, a big guard with a good nose for the basket. But his name -- or, more precisely, the Palestra chant of "Sol-o-mi-to" -- has an undesirable connotation for the 6'6" swingman.
Unfortunately for the Quakers junior, his last name has been synonymous with garbage time over his three seasons in red and blue. When Penn would build a hefty lead, the fans in the student sections would start chanting his name as a signal that the game was out of reach.
Solomito's not the second coming of Pete Maravich, but he doesn't deserve that chant anymore. His three-of-five shooting from behind the arc against St. Joe's should be taken as a sign to the Palestra fans to cut it out -- he's a nice player who can provide a spark if Fran Dunphy's team needs one.
But that's the problem with Penn right now -- that description of Solomito could fit nearly all of Dunphy's charges.
This is a team full of players who can show definite signs of excellence, but it's a squad without an ace-in-the-hole, without very much that it can rely on night in and night out.
In other words, as the Quakers head into the meat of their Ivy League season, they can't be very sure which of their numerous weapons will fire in a given contest.
This means that their Ancient Eight campaign is a difficult thing to predict. The Quakers have enough firepower to blow away the rest of the league, but they are also inconsistent enough to drop some of the close ones. I'd say 14-0 is more likely than 10-4, and 12-2 sounds about right.
But that's pure speculation. And given the unpredictability of Penn this season, it's just plain half-baked.
Lamar Plummer has been Penn's most consistent offensive threat in this, his senior season. The shooting guard, who is averaging 15.8 points per game, has demonstrated great range en route to an Ivy League-leading 59 three-pointers.
When the Red and Blue are in need of a big shot, Plummer's the guy who gets the first look -- and for good reason. On Saturday night, it was Plummer's jump shooting that helped Penn hang tight with the Hawks down the stretch.
In addition, it was a gutsy Plummer steal deep in the St. Joe's end with 1:34 left that evoked the most hope in the Penn faithful.
That said, there's no doubt that Plummer lives and dies by the jump shot. If the ball's not falling for him, there really isn't too much else that he can do for the Penn offense.
The Quakers' second-leading scorer, Ugonna Onyekwe, has been downright explosive at times this season -- he's had three games of 20 or more points.
But there are other nights when Onyekwe looks uncomfortable on the court, especially on the offensive end. Last night was one of those.
Asked about Onyekwe's sub-par 3-for-15 shooting from the field last night, Dunphy was clear:
"He hasn't shot well all year.," Dunphy said. "Just the little things like at the end of the game we were down five we didn't necessarily need him shooting that three, but he's still learning how to play. He doesn't have a great sense of every situation."
Sure, Onyekwe's athleticism will doubtless make a number of Ivy League forwards look like middle-schoolers this season, but he's not the kind of player that a team can bank on in the last two minutes of a tight game.
Penn center Geoff Owens also has the ability to make waves offensively. Heading into Saturday night's game, he was shooting a very impressive 64.8 percent from the field. He had 10 points last night, but he felt he could have done more.
Up and down their lineup, the Quakers sport players that can bite you when you're not looking.
And they do it in different ways every night.
Opponents wouldn't expect Adam Chubb to hit a three-pointer like he did last night in the second half, but he did. The Hawks probably didn't gameplan against Solomito's outside touch either.
With this season's Quakers, opposing coaches can't ever be sure which of Penn's weapons will surface on a given night.
As a result, other Ivy League teams have to be a combination of hopeful and fearful when they face off against the Quakers -- hopeful of an upset on an off night and fearful of what Penn can do if it puts things together.
(01/24/01 10:00am)
Just as the colonists didn't realize the full importance of Saratoga until they made it to Yorktown, the Penn Quakers won't know if Lafayette once again marks a turning point in their season until they leave Princeton's Jadwin Gym on March 6.
As Penn men's basketball coach Fran Dunphy made clear after his squad's 82-74 win over the Leopards on Saturday, wins over Lafayette have proved pivotal turning points in the Quakers' past two seasons.
In both '98-'99 and '99-'00, victories over Fran O'Hanlon's teams helped drive the Red and Blue through their season's stretch run.
Penn (4-10, 2-0 Ivy League) will get its first chance to see if it has turned a corner tonight when it tips off against Lehigh at 7:00 p.m. in the Palestra.
"I don't know if beating Lafayette is a turning point for us," Penn senior shooting guard Lamar Plummer said. "I can't predict the future. All I can say is that I know we are becoming more of a team."
With tonight's matchup, the gelling Quakers begin a four-game homestand -- which also includes games against St. Joseph's, Yale and Brown -- that will go a long way in determining the course and tenor of the the second half of their season.
The annual contest against the Engineers usually goes Penn's way -- the Quakers have won the past nine and 31 of 34 total games -- but the Red and Blue would be foolish to take tonight for granted.
Lehigh (8-9, 2-2 Patriot League) is admittedly flawed, but the Quakers -- who have already lost their share to less-than-perfect teams this season -- are taking on a scrappy Engineers squad that is looking forward to playing the role of impudent house guest tonight at the Palestra.
"Tomorrow will be a tough challenge for us, especially coming off a tough loss [86-79] at Colgate," Lehigh sophomore guard Matt Logie said. "We have a very young team, and as long as we take it with a grain of salt, we'll be alright. But it's a good test to play Penn right now."
That loss at Colgate, which came on Saturday, evened Lehigh's league mark at 2-2.
The Engineers is also 2-3 against the Ivy League this year, with wins against Dartmouth and Cornell and defeats at the hands of Harvard, Columbia and Brown.
With a distinctly deep bench, Lehigh will almost certainly bring heavy defensive pressure to bear on the host Quakers this evening.
"Every once in a while, they'll settle back into zone, but pressure has basically always been their M.O.," Dunphy said. "That's something we're expecting and something we've worked on."
Yesterday at practice, as Dunphy stressed to his team the importance of attacking that Lehigh pressure, the word he harped on most was 'poise', and this seems to be what the Quakers need to cultivate if they want to cruise through the remainder of their schedule.
They need to develop poise in transition against the press. They need to develop poise on defense, in half-court sets on offense and, of course, on the free-throw line.
At Lafayette, the Red and Blue definitely exemplified more than a modicum of this poise, shooting 51 percent from the field and connecting on an uncharacteristically clutch 80 percent from the line.
Asked if he is pushing his team exceptionally hard to develop, Dunphy responds by saying that he's not being terribly harsh.
Yes, he was disappointed by the losses to Drexel and Delaware, but Dunphy doesn't think he has been coming down hard on his youthful Quakers.
"These guys have no concept of how tough it's been for other teams in the past," Dunphy said.
(01/17/01 10:00am)
It took the Penn men's swimming team a quarter of a century worth of disappointment to get a win against Army, but the Quakers now look intent on establishing a winning streak of their own.
This past Saturday in West Point, N.Y., the Red and Blue upped their season record to 3-1 with a demonstrative 150-87 victory over the Cadets. The win marked the second consecutive year in which Penn bested Army.
"It's great to beat them," Penn coach Mike Schnur said. "Until last year, we hadn't beaten them since 1974. And I'm sure we haven't won up there in at least something like 50 years. The best thing about it was that we beat them so well -- it really wasn't a meet."
The Black Knights weren't exactly blown out of the water, but Schnur's troops did take it right to the West Pointers, as the Quakers finished one-two in four different events.
Penn freshman freestyler Shaun Lehrer turned in a superb meet for the winning side. A specialist in the 200 and 500-meter freestyle, Lehrer impressed early on Saturday by taking top honors in the 1,000.
Followed in second place by sophomore teammate Nate Pinney, Lehrer touched the wall in 9:38.65, a significant improvement over the best Penn time in the event this season.
Lehrer struck again later on. He finished first in the 500 freestyle (4:40.78), followed by Penn's Brian Barone in second position.
"He has experience at that distance, but that's a long time ago," Schnur said of Lehrer's 1,000 swim. "He wants to win the 200 and the 500, but he did a great job of stepping up for us. He'll need to do that a few times for us this season."
In the 200-meter backstroke, Quakers swimmers also took the top two spots. Freshman Adam Smith touched first in an economical clip of 1:56.43, and sophomore Allen Lam was right on his heels with a time of 1:57.07.
The capstone to the banner day for the Quakers came with the 400 IM, which saw Penn's Eric Hirschhorn and Spencer Driscoll take gold and silver.
"The 400 IM really cemented things," Schnur said. "Army had a quality IMer in the race, and our guys took it to him."
Against the Cadets, Penn clearly showed the effects of the team's winter break training trip to sunny Florida.
After being delayed by snow for a day, the Quakers flew south on December 31. The time in Florida gave the Red and Blue a chance to train outdoors for a change, and the crisper evening air of the Sunshine State provided a nice change of pace.
"Gimbel [Sheerr Pool] hasn't been great for air quality, especially for guys that have asthma. Training outside was nice," Schnur said.
While down the coast, the Quakers competed at the Florida Atlantic Invitational against topnotch scholarship programs such as Nebraska, Georgia Tech and Virginia Tech. Penn beat host Florida Atlantic and finished ahead of Virginia Tech in the non-diving events en route to a fourth-place finish.
"Other Penn teams would have dogged it against those teams because we were basically in training mode," Schnur said. "But we came out and competed well."
(12/14/00 10:00am)
While most Penn undergrads will have a number of sleepy weeks to reflect on the semester ahead over winter break, the Quakers men's basketball team barely gets a breather.
According to coach Fran Dunphy, his charges will leave campus either on December 21 or 22, and will all need to report back to duty on the evening of the 26th.
"It gives them a good three or four days to spend some time with their families," Dunphy said at practice on Tuesday.
The Red and Blue will need to recharge their batteries well during that brief respite because Penn will play five games against quality opponents over the break, the final two of which will be Ivy League contests against visiting squads from Columbia and Cornell.
"Our first goal is always to make the NCAA Tournament," Dunphy said. "If we had beaten N.C. State or Penn State or a few more teams early, we might be able to think about getting an at-large bid, but now the focus is on winning our league. It's our way of going to the tournament, and we need to be ready from the start."
It's likely that the Quakers will get a boost at some point over winter break when 6'5" guard Duane King returns to the Penn lineup. The sophomore -- who underwent surgery to repair a crack in his fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot in late October -- suited up for last Saturday's game against Maryland and yesterday's contest at Seton Hall (IS THIS STILL CORRECT?), but will probably not check into a game until at least January 7, when Penn travels to Florida International.
"Realistically, I think that Florida International would be about the time when you would see him," Dunphy said. "He's practicing now, but he's really had a lot of soreness."
The Golden Panthers, who went 16-14 last season en route to third place in the Sun Belt Conference, are struggling thus far with a 2-6 record. Already having lost big to the likes of Hofstra, Providence and St. Bonaventure, Donnie Marsh's squad has out-of-conference showdowns with Washington and Purdue before doing battle with the Quakers.
In Miami, the Penn backcourt will have to keep a close eye on 6'2" Puerto Rican guard Carlos Arroyo, who is averaging a whopping 20.9 points per game.
The trip south is not all about basketball for Dunphy's squad, however. Always committed to providing the fullest experience for his team, the Penn head man sees the January 7 trip to the Sunshine State as a way to do just that.
But before the Quakers can spend any time on the beach, there is business to attend to back in Philadelphia. On the evening of December 29, the Temple Owls will come to the Palestra.
John Chaney's team started off this season 4-0 and sprinted up the national rankings. Since then, the Owls have lost five in a row and have dropped out of the top 25. Temple is hungry to bounce back, and the Owls' tenacious matchup zone will give the Quakers another chance to deal with pressure.
"I think we did a pretty good job of dealing with pressure defense in the second half against Maryland," Dunphy said. "Temple is a high-quality opponent that always defends us well, and it will help to let us see where we are."
Back in Philadelphia on January 10, University City rival Drexel will stroll down 33rd Street to the Palestra. The Dragons pack a triple threat of 15-point scorers in guard Stephen Starks, forward Mike Kouser and center Joe Linderman and always play the Quakers tough.
Penn's winter break schedule wraps up on January 12 and 13, when the New York Ivies will visit the Palestra. The two-time defending champion Quakers will have a chance to extend their 21-game Ancient Eight winning streak against Columbia and Cornell.
After that weekend, the Quakers will have 12 games under their belt and an early indication of how they will fare in their Ivy League campaign.
(12/07/00 10:00am)
Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky was taking a trip with his family to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., a few years ago when he got an idea.
"I really liked it up there, and I asked myself, why not do a history of the Palestra and Philadelphia college basketball with that as an inspiration," Bilsky said.
Now, a couple of years and $2 million later, Bilsky has done it. With tonight's Penn-La Salle men's and women's doubleheader, the public will get its first chance to feast its eyes on a new look for college basketball's most storied gymnasium -- Palestra 2000.
Although no changes have been made to the interior of the arena, the concourses around the Palestra have been renovated to act as a de facto Hall of Fame for Philadelphia college basketball. Each of the four main hallways have been outfitted with well-lit, exciting displays that express the rich splendor of the 73-year old cathedral of hoops.
The project came in with a price tag of about $2 million, a higher total than originally planned. Donations from three main sources -- the Robert L. Banse Family, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation and Bill and Louise Meiklejohn -- were critical in funding the renovations.
The changes to the building are striking to all who walk into the refurbished main entrance, set back from 33rd Street. Gone is the old ticket window, and in its place sits a sleek ticket counter with a number of separate windows.
"The old system of getting a ticket was pretty tough," Bilsky said of the improvement. "This will help out with lines and with will call."
The west concourse -- directly behind the new ticket counter -- is dedicated to the other four schools of the Philadelphia Big 5. Always the home of the City Series' Hall of Fame plaques, the hallway now features separate colorful displays that focus on Temple, St. Joseph's, Villanova and La Salle.
On the inside wall, the Big 5 Hall of Fame plaques remain, but they are enclosed in a handsome new case that will allow for the future expansion of the list of honorees. On the remainder of that wall are displays that focus on one of each of the four other schools. For example, the 'Nova display naturally showcases its 1985 NCAA Championship, while La Salle's exhibit concerns player, coach and athletic director Tom Gola.
"The other schools all worked with us," Bilsky said. "We came to them with ideas and made sure that it was something they agreed with."
On the outside wall, one finds the real treat of the hallway -- large formica displays that depict the great players and moments in the history of each of the four programs.
The south concourse is devoted to the long and storied history of Penn basketball. Along the inside wall, there are areas dedicated to prominent periods over the past 30 years of Quakers history.
Beginning with a section dubbed "Top Ten" that focuses on the Dick Harter-led squads of the early 70's, the inside wall covers all the major twists and turns of the Red and Blue up until today. Impossible to miss are large photos of 2000 graduate Michael Jordan atop the Palestra rim last year in celebration of an Ivy crown and a picture of the pre-Final Four pep rally that attracted 20,000 people to Franklin Field in 1979.
The outside wall, meanwhile, details a decade-by-decade history of Penn basketball, complete with photos dating back nearly a century. It also includes a section on the history of Penn women's basketball.
The east concourse is more of a hodgepodge than the other hallways, but it begins with a bang. Around the corner from the south concourse, a section of the project dedicated to the Penn-Princeton rivalry awaits. A collage of quotes and photos from the long history of the rivalry is displayed on the outside wall, while a scoreboard indicating total wins currently reads Penn 109, Princeton 93, on the inside.
The rest of the concourse is dedicated to the best in the history of the Ivy League, to the media luminaries that have frequented the Palestra, to other uses for the arena besides sporting events, and to the Penn volleyball and wrestling teams -- the two other squads that call the Palestra their home.
The final concourse, the north hallway, is a joy to behold. The entire hall contains images of the great players and coaches that have graced the Palestra hardwood. They are the ones that run the gamut, from a young, slightly unstable-looking picture of Bob Knight coaching Army, to a giant photo of the outstretched arms of Wilt Chamberlain in his Overbrook High School uniform. This concourse is not one to be missed.
Gathering these photos was a difficult task, as Bilsky and project point person Audrey Schnur confirm, but it was worth it in the end.
"Personally, it's a little more of a labor of love," former Quakers star Bilsky said.
That, after all, is what this building is about.
As the plaque near the entrance of the Palestra has always said, "to love the game is the greatest of all."
(11/30/00 10:00am)
The possibility still remains that the Penn men's basketball team could end the month of December with a record of 5-3.
But the Quakers, who are 0-3 after Tuesday's 84-81 overtime loss at Davidson, have just about as good a chance of winning each of their next five contests as I do of hitting the lottery before Penn's January 7 game at Florida International.
The Quakers are about to enter a gauntlet of games in which they will face Penn State, La Salle, No. 14 Maryland, No. 9 Seton Hall and No. 15 Temple, in that order.
I think the Red and Blue have a very realistic shot of pulling at least one of these games out. If they win two, it will give them a real shot in the arm. If they win three, Quakers fans will be dancing in the streets.
And if they win four, Penn fans will be dancing in the streets naked, as their Quakers will have knocked off at least two top-25 teams.
Nevertheless, it's very possible that the Penn Quakers -- the defending Ivy League champions and consensus favorite to repeat -- will head into January with an 0-8 record.
It would be a mild surprise to me, but it wouldn't come as any shock.
This is a team still looking for an identity, with an offense that is miles away from clicking.
If the Quakers are 0-8 after their home game against Temple, things won't be peachy for Fran Dunphy's squad, but they won't be dire either.
True, the Quakers don't look like a championship team right now, but the seeds of an Ivy three-peat are there.
First, this team has a strong leader. Captain Geoff Owens, although not the most vocal guy in the world, cares very deeply about this squad, and he will try his hardest to right the ship.
Tuesday night, I stood with Owens outside the Penn locker room after the loss. His frustration was written all over him, and his body language was that of an angry fisherman, furious about the one that got away.
Owens was angry about the mistakes that he and his team made, angry about their effort in practice. He seemed more outwardly upset than Dunphy did.
Owens is not going to be an All-American this year, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he will lead this team in a way that some don't expect him to.
Second, the Quakers have loads of offensive ability that has, thus far, only made itself visible in fits and spurts.
The loss of All-Ivy guards Michael Jordan and Matt Langel to graduation has definitely taken a chunk out of last year's offense, but Penn has the tools to repair itself.
What it sorely lacks right now is poise with the basketball.
Ugonna Onyekwe's line from Tuesday night looks pretty good on paper -- a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds. But he was less than spectacular in a number of ways.
From the free-throw line, he was a detriment to the Penn cause, going 5-for-11 and missing a bunch down the stretch that would have really helped. In addition, he had trouble finishing, in one instance flubbing an alley-oop, then missing a layup off of his own rebound.
Don't get me wrong, Onyekwe was impressive in spurts. But he continued to show a lack of polish. When he's able to get open looks and float into the lane with the ball, he has to get in the habit of finishing. He's no longer a freshman who can take teams by surprise; he needs to convert when given the chance.
Koko Archibong has been smart and effective on the offensive end thus far, but he is not yet the kind of player that can create opportunities.
Penn's guard situation is good, but not terrific. Lamar Plummer had 17 points on Tuesday, but he was only 5-of-15 from the field. David Klatsky is maturing nicely, yet he will never really be the focal point of an offense. Freshman Charlie Copp played 27 quality minutes at Davidson and showed himself to be a tough, sure-shooting freshman, but a freshman just the same.
Any way you look at it, these Quakers have the materials necessary for a smooth-running offense. They just have not yet put it all together in any coherent way.
And it is that aptitude -- the ability to play within yourself and convert when the opportunity arises -- that gives teams like Penn the chance to upset squads like Seton Hall and Maryland.
If the Quakers don't begin to put things together, they will find such upsets difficult and may wind up staring down the barrel of an 0-8 record a month from now.
That would be hard on this young Penn team, but it certainly wouldn't be the end.
Many of the important pieces to another Ivy championship are there -- Dunphy and his team just need to start putting together the puzzle.
(11/29/00 10:00am)
DAVIDSON, N.C. -- Last night, before 2,024 energetic fans at Belk Arena, Davidson overcame Penn, 84-81, in an overtime game that had as many plot twists as a season's worth of soap operas.
This was an extra-time contest that began with a somewhat uninspiring first half and evolved into a bucket-for-bucket thriller between two scrappy, somewhat inexperienced teams. In the second half alone, there were an eye-boggling 17 lead changes and five ties.
As Penn guard Lamar Plummer's desperation heave left his hands just after the final buzzer sounded in overtime, the Quakers sank to 0-3 in this young season, while the Wildcats raised their season record to 2-3.
The current state of his team has Penn senior captain Geoff Owens concerned.
"It's tough right now," Owens said. "We need more. We make so many little mistakes, and in an overtime game like this, that means the difference between this and us walking into the locker room with a win.
"I'm sure that we're all going to watch the tape of this game and kick ourselves."
Things looked bleak for the Quakers less than seven minutes into the second half. At the 13:21 mark of the second period, Owens was called for his third personal foul of the night, the team's fifth of the half. Penn coach Fran Dunphy was furious at the call and received a technical foul from the officials. Less than a minute later, the Quakers were down by the largest margin of the day, 50-42.
Then Penn turned the tide, at least for a while.
The Quakers went on a 9-0 run, which was punctuated by a beautiful crosscourt bounce pass from David Klatsky to Koko Archibong, who converted on a baseline three-pointer. The Red and Blue regained the lead, and then a game of ping pong began.
The lead bounced back and forth as the defenses of both squads hankered down.
In the final 12 minutes of the second half, neither squad could muster an advantage of more than three points.
With 1:18 showing on the clock, Davidson's Wayne Bernard, who led all scorers with 27 points, hit a layup to knot the score at 71. There the game stayed until, with 17 ticks remaining, 7'2" Davidson center Martin Ides hit a 12-foot baby hook from the baseline while being fouled by Owens.
The foul -- Owens' fifth and final -- put the awkward Czech at the free-throw line. Ides connected, and Davidson led 74-71.
Penn brought the ball down the court, and after two passes, Klatsky let go of a three-point attempt from at least 24 feet from the basket. He was fouled on the play and went to the charity stripe with the game hanging on his three freebies.
Like a veteran far beyond his years, Klatsky swished all three and evened the score at 74. There it would stay until overtime.
"Frankly, I would have been surprised if he [Klatsky] had missed those shots; he's that type of a player," Dunphy said.
Penn was ice cold in the extra period, shooting 2-of-10 from the field, 1-of-6 from beyond the arc and 2-of-6 from the free-throw line.
The first half was an unspectacular affair, but it began with a nice gesture from the Penn coaching staff.
Penn senior forward Josh Sanger, who hails from nearby Charlotte, N.C., got the starting nod in place of sophomore Ugonna Onyekwe. The 6'8" defensive specialist, a favorite of Dunphy, got a chance to play before friends and family before coming out with 15:45 left in the period.
At that point in the early going, Davidson had built a 9-5 lead and the Wildcats bench was juiced.
When he checked in, Onyekwe looked like a man with something to prove, and he put a damper on the Wildcats' mini-run. Onyekwe corralled a loose ball and converted a layup to narrow the deficit to 9-7. The teams traded baskets to make it 11-9 before he slammed a ball home to make it 11-11.
An Onyekwe steal and dish to Klatsky underneath the basket gave the Quakers the lead, 13-11, and Penn would keep it for a good stretch. A minute later, the Penn power forward went for another steal at halfcourt. For a while Onyekwe looked inspired, but after that stretch, he -- like the Quakers -- settled back into a back-and-forth, scrappy half that was less than pretty.
Onyekwe, along with Owens and Plummer, scored 17 points last night, but was ineffective with the ball on many occasions.
Close man-to-man defense was the story for both squads in the first stanza, as Penn shot 40.7 percent from the field and Davidson connected on a measly 34.6 percent of their attempts.
Play got rather sloppy at times, as well; there were 17 turnovers and 23 personal fouls between the two teams in the first half.
The Quakers came into last night's contest looking to sneak one into the win column before they embark on a hellish first half of December. Over the next two weeks, Penn will face a charging Penn State squad, La Salle, power-packed Maryland and talent-laden Seton Hall.
The Wildcats, meanwhile, walked onto their home court with the clear objective of returning to the form that brought them 15 wins last season. In their first four outings, Davidson managed just one win, against Jackson State. In their four previous games, their opponents have outscored the 'Cats by an average of 81-65.
Despite the loss, Dunphy doesn't seem overly concerned about his young Quakers.
"I think there were a number of things that we can be happy about, but a lot of things that we need to work on," Dunphy said.
(11/28/00 10:00am)
Ten days after the end of its last trip to the Tar Heel State, the Penn men's basketball team will once again play the role of carpetbagger by squaring off against Davidson tonight in the sleepy town of Davidson, N.C.
The Quakers (0-2), fresh off two less-than-stellar games at the CoSIDA Classic at N.C. State two weekends ago, will look to settle into something closer to midseason form tonight against a young Wildcats squad (1-3).
In their first two games, the Quakers have shown definite signs of the talent that will be necessary for a third straight Ivy League title, but consistent, optimal performance is still a long way down the road.
"We're a work in progress," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said after the second CoSIDA loss, an 81-78 squeaker that went to the Fordham Rams.
Bob McKillop's Wildcats are similarly in flux. Coming off a season in which Davidson went 15-13 and finished second in the North Division of the Southern Conference, expectations were for more of the same. Most preseason pundits picked the 'Cats to finish in the same spot.
Just four games into this still fledgling season, however, Davidson -- a team without a senior on the roster -- is showing signs of its immaturity.
In the Wildcats' three losses thus far, opponents have outscored Davidson by a knee-knocking average of 86-61. At the same time, the perennial Southern Conference power turned the ball over an average of nearly 20 times per contest.
These losses all came against solid Division I programs, but they weren't exactly against the Dukes and Arizonas of the world. An opening loss to Conference USA would-be sleeper South Florida at the Top of the World Classic at Alaska-Fairbanks didn't look too bad at the time. But since then, South Florida has fallen hard to Utah State and Colorado -- which doesn't bode well for a team that many thought would turn heads in 2000-01.
Davidson's inability to hang with either Santa Clara or Georgia Tech also has to dishearten McKillop and his staff.
Unlike the Wildcats, the Quakers have basically hung tough in their two games this season.
In the opener against N.C. State, Penn came flying out of the gates, building a quick 8-2 lead. The Wolfpack charged back and led, 33-28, at the half. The Red and Blue had a rough time containing N.C. State's frontcourt down the stretch, and they eventually succumbed, 77-64.
Sophomore power forward Ugonna Onyekwe led Penn scorers with 14 points on 6-for-14 shooting in a game where the Quakers were close to or even with the Wolfpack in every statistical category but free-throw shooting.
Dunphy's starting frontcourt duo of Onyekwe and Owens had trouble the next night in a see-saw battle with Fordham. Both fouled out, and they netted only 17 points among them as the Quakers went down in defeat, 81-78. Penn guards David Klatsky and Lamar Plummer scored 15 points apiece against the Rams from Rose Hill.
"I think we're getting exactly what we deserved," Dunphy said after the Fordham loss. "We didn't play well and we didn't deserve to win the game."
Given their defensive troubles in Raleigh -- Penn let both N.C. State and Fordham take control of games after building an early lead -- the Quakers will certainly look to shut down a potentially explosive Davidson team tonight.
The Wildcats pack a prodigious punch with a trio of scorers at forward.
Fourth-year junior forward Emeka Erege is the focal point of the Davidson offense. Erege has an interesting pedigree. Having called both Nigeria and Germany his home, the 6'5" scorer came to Davidson via Long Island Lutheran, the high school where McKillop coached before making his trip south. He has been in double figures in every game this season and is averaging 13.8 points per contest.
Joining Erege down low will be 6'9" Chris Pearson and 6'8" Jason Dickens, who are both averaging about 10 points and five rebounds per game. Center Martin Ides, a 7'2" Czech big man who is one of six Wildcats from overseas, will be a key to the 'Cats defense.
A main focus for both these teams has to be taking care of the basketball. With Davidson averaging 20 turnovers and the Quakers yielding 16 to Fordham in their last game, give-aways must be a prime concern for both coaching staffs.
The ballhandling and defense of guards Fern Tonella, Wayne Bernard and Michael Bree will be the Wildcats' answer to their sub-par turnover numbers.
Although he won't be a prime offensive target for the Quakers, Penn senior forward Josh Sanger is certainly a focus of today's trip. The Charlotte, N.C., native will be able to play in front of family and friends at the nearby 5,700-seat Belk Arena.
A happy homecoming for Sanger may very well mean a move in the right direction for Penn's work in progress.
