Penn Gazette Sports

An empty Jadwin gym, two hours after Penn lost a heartbreaker to Princeton

PRINCETON, N.J. – What is there to say? For Penn basketball fans, Tuesday night marked a bitter end to a memorable season as the Quakers missed a golden opportunity to capture a share of the program’s first NCAA tournament since 2007. Even worse, hated rival Princeton was the team to deal Penn such a cruel fate.

In time, I will review this season, look ahead to the next one and try to put Zack Rosen’s incredible college career in perspective. For now, I will simply share what head coach Jerome Allen, Rosen and fellow senior Rob Belcore said after Tuesday’s gut-wrenching loss to Princeton in the regular-season finale. For those Penn fans who want to torture themselves further, they can read my game story, one from the Daily News’ Dick Jerardi here, and a good column from the Inquirer’s Mike Jensen here.

I’ve seen a few people say Allen was too hard on his players since many believe this team overachieved. You can craft your own opinions based on the quotes below, but Allen has said similar stuff all season long, and in my opinion it’s helped turn the program around. Plus, he did praise the seniors for the work they put in to the program. Here’s the transcript:

JEROME ALLEN

I’m obviously disappointed. We set out to say we wanted to control our own destiny and everything we did to prepare was for winning the league. This is not the end we had in mind. We came up short.

I think [I was most disappointed with] the defense, to be honest with you. On days when the ball doesn’t go in the basket, you still have an opportunity to win. It’s how you defend. I just thought from start of game, they didn’t have anything to play for, other than to be the spoilers. How can a team that’s playing for nothing play harder than the team that’s supposedly playing for something? And that’s really what blew my mind. OK, the ball wasn’t going in. But offensively they just got whatever they wanted – backdoors, offensive rebounds, open jump shots, open layups. And I think that’s really where the problem lies.

I think when you put it together, we had about four or five consecutive stops, and I think that’s what enabled us to get back in the game. And shots for us went down. And then they came right back down and scored on two straight possessions and then again two straight possessions. That’s where the game was at – five, seven, eight. At this point of the season, whether you’re fatigued or not, you have 40 minutes of your life to have something you can share with your grandchildren. It can’t be a function of fatigue. It just came down to desire.

I’ll give their offense some credit. Those guys, Princeton, they stick with their system. It’s an unusual system to defend with misdirection, with backdoors. Having said that, it’s the same system they ran when we played them earlier in the season at the Palestra. So it’s not like they ran anything new. It was a direct function of our focus.

I don’t think I was confused. I’m not confused, baffled or surprised. It was just a direct function of who paid attention to details better over the course of 40 minutes.

I think these [seniors] bought in. And that allowed us to get 15 guys to listen. When the best players get it and give it every day in practice and they’re diving on the floor for loose balls and taking film home by themselves to study, that kind of allows me to do my job a lot easier. It gives a sense of normalcy for what the freshmen think is expected. This is what we do. It gave us that identity going forward. Hopefully next year’s class comes in and guys currently returning will do the same thing for those guys. I appreciate it, the fact they allowed us to teach as a staff. There are no moral victories by any means. This is the University of Pennsylvania and we’re about winning championships. We don’t prepare to come in second. We prepare to win. From that standpoint, not winning is a disappointment. We’re disappointed. But having said that, going forward we know areas we can improve, both mental and physical, to one day become champions because really that’s what it’s all about.

I don’t know [about the NIT, CBI or CIT]. That’s out of our control. I just think the biggest thing we tried to tell these guys is you always want to be in position where you can control your own destiny. We had that opportunity tonight. Whatever happens come Wednesday, Selection Sunday, who gets in, who doesn’t get in, we don’t know because we can’t control that. That’s unfortunate.

For one, Steve Bilsky did something I’m not sure too many athletic directors would have done and give a guy with three months experience the opportunity to run the program. Having said that, we stay connected to the process. This is a disappointing season for us. We didn’t win. From Dec. 14 to 2009 to March 6 of 2012, the only thing we wanted to instill in these guys is if we hold onto our principles for 40 minutes and defend, we will win more than we lose. Whether that was 11-3 or 6-8 we came up short. You’ve been to the Palestra a number of times and you know what that building is about and what this program is about. We’re top 10 in all-time wins in NCAA history. And to not get it done is disappointing. Whether we finished 11-3 or not, what does that do for us?

ZACK ROSEN

We didn’t play as hard as we could and we lost.

For us, the season is either you win it or you don’t. That’s what [the younger players] can take away from it I guess. You win or you don’t. Whether we’re close or not close, you either win or you don’t. They can take that.

Whether it has or hasn’t [sunk in], we lost. We blew our opportunity and that’s the bottom line. I don’t think there’s anything past that to say.

ROB BELCORE

Until tonight, we weren’t mathematically eliminated. I suppose after Princeton beat Harvard at Harvard, we knew we had a chance to run the table. And if we played our best basketball, we could beat anyone in the league. And we beat every team in the league this year. No one swept us. I never for a second thought we were out. With the guy sitting to my right [Rosen], he’s going to need a month off for how tired his back has got to be. As long as he was taking the floor with me, I legitimately believe there was no one – I thought he could carry us through the whole way. And he almost did. I think we let him down, the other 14 guys. Zack’s play was tremendous. He’s the best player in the Big 5 this year. He’s the best player in the Ivy League this year. As long as I was with him, I knew we had more than a punchers’ chance.

Ian Hummer is a really good player. He knocked down some threes. We all have to live with that. He had two big threes that hurt us in the first half. My M.O. is supposed to be the guy that locks people up, plays defense. I don’t even know how much he had but we lost. He had a good game. I should have done better. I don’t care what they run. I don’t care what any system is. What it comes down to is stopping the person in front of you and I didn’t do that.

BOSTON – Lavietes Pavilion, the basketball gym at Harvard, has a unique setup. Unlike most gyms, where media areas are tucked away inside the bowels of the arena, the press conferences at Lavietes are held in a second-story room with a large glass window that overlooks the court.

I found myself thinking about this setup on Saturday when, about 10 minutes after a classic Penn-Harvard basketball game ended, Tommy Amaker walked into the room. Sitting in a cushy chair, with his back to the window, the Harvard coach fielded questions from reporters, attempting to ignore what was happening behind him on the court. But it was hard to ignore.

As Amaker was asked how his team blew a golden opportunity to capture a share of the Ivy League championship and all but lock up the program’s first NCAA tournament berth since 1946, a large contingent of Penn fans gathered on the opposite side of the gym, cheering Quaker players and coaches, one by one, as they filed out of the visiting locker room.

Amaker heard what was happening and tried not to wince. There was supposed to be a party on the floor at Lavietes Pavilion on Saturday. Just not this kind of party.

———-

It’s hard to overstate the magnitude of Penn’s 55-54 triumph over Harvard. Just consider what the Crimson had going for them:

• They had won 28 straight games at home, the second longest such streak in the nation
• They returned everybody from last year’s co-Ivy championship team, were nationally ranked earlier in the season and were (perhaps prematurely) predicted by some to be one of the best Ivy League teams ever
• They were celebrating Senior Night in a game that had been sold out for weeks (with tickets selling for more than $100 on StubHub)
• They led for most of the night and held a nine-point advantage with six minutes remaining
• They were facing a Penn team whose second best player – Tyler Bernardini – was seriously limited by a foot injury and that had few experienced big men to deal with Harvard’s All-Ivy forward tandem of Keith Wright and Kyle Casey

But the Quakers had at least two things going for them: Zack Rosen and guts. And with his team trailing by nine, Rosen – who will easily go down as one of the best players in Penn history – took over the game, as he’s done time and time again this season, leading the Quakers to the come-from-behind stunner to spoil Harvard’s night and keep Penn in control of its own destiny in the Ivy title chase. (Read my game story for CSNPhilly.com here.)

And then the party started.

———-

Like many longtime Penn basketball fans, I’ve been lucky enough to see the Quakers win many Ivy League championships. I arrived on Penn’s campus in the fall of 1999, the same year as Ugonna Onyekwe, Koko Archibong and other talents rarely before seen in the Ivy League. Soon Andrew Toole and Tim Begley got here, and then Ibby Jaaber and Mark Zoller. Thanks to these guys – Ivy League stars all of them – Penn managed to capture six conference titles in the first eight years I started following the team.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying this: I was spoiled. So, too, were a lot of my classmates, who expected Penn to go to the NCAA tournament every year (or, at the very least, come in second place in the Ivies behind Princeton.)

But we all know what happened next. Fran Dunphy, the architect of so many great Penn teams, bolted for Temple, and his replacement, Glen Miller, couldn’t carry on Penn’s tradition of success. Players began to transfer and injuries began to mount. Cornell got good and then so did Harvard. For the Quakers, it was a struggle to even finish in the top half of the league, let alone win it.

Around this time two years ago, there was a glimmer of hope when new coach Jerome Allen led Penn, in the midst of one of its worst seasons ever, to an upset win over nationally ranked team Cornell team at the Palestra. After the surprisingly lopsided win, students rushed the court, and if I recall correctly, some fans were not pleased about this, since Penn, well, is supposed to beat Cornell at home. But if you hadn’t been at the Palestra for those last few years, and only followed the team from afar, it was probably hard to relate to the sheer joy felt by the fans in the building that night. If only for a few hours, the magic of the Palestra had returned.

Saturday’s win over Harvard felt even better because the stakes were so much higher. It’s been a long, slow climb back to the top of the Ivy heap, where Penn had been perched for so many years, and while the Quakers are not there, it sure felt that way over the weekend.

For four straight seasons, Penn wasn’t even in contention to win an Ivy League title — and for those of us who have been spoiled by success, it felt more like 40. That’s why fans made sure to show their gratitude Saturday, even long after the final whistle blew. It took a whole lot of losing to appreciate winning again.

“This is why I came here,” sophomore guard Miles Cartwright said, looking below on the crowd of Penn supporters. “When I was being recruited, Coach Allen told me we’d be playing these kinds of games on the road. It was a great opportunity tonight and I’m really grateful we got it done.”

Later, while on the team bus heading back to Philly, Cartwright tweeted, “really grateful for my teammates. big win for us, but please believe it when i say that we are not done yet.” That, of course, is very true. The Quakers need to win their final three games of the regular season – home games against Brown and Yale this weekend and then a road tilt vs. Princeton next Tuesday – to secure at least a share of the Ivy title. And then they’ll likely need to beat Harvard again – in a one-game playoff – to get back to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2007.

But after hitting rock bottom (at least by Penn’s lofty standards), just playing meaningful basketball in March means a lot. And should they get back to the Big Dance, it would mean a whole lot more. Or as Rosen put it, in this CSN video, “We would have walked into hell and left in heaven.”

For a few moments on Saturday, it felt like old times for Stan Greene, who played basketball at Penn from 1974-78.

As Greene drove to the hole, he heard the familiar ring of “Go Stan Greene,” the legendary chant that lasted well after the ex-Penn guard graduated and today is commemorated with a plaque in the Palestra halls.

But when Greene’s drive ended by him getting blocked – badly – he quickly realized the 1970s it is not.

“I got a little too confident,” said Greene, the oldest player competing in Penn basketball’s annual alumni game. “I hit one shot and I thought, ‘Oh, I can take this guy.’ Well, my body reminded me that I’m 55 years old. So it’s not going to happen.”

In the end, Greene’s five points weren’t enough to help the Blue Team, who suffered a 60-49 setback to a Red Team that featured another player from that era: Ted Flick C’81.

While many of their ex-teammates have stopped playing on the floor they once starred on, both Flick and Greene have been constants in the alumni game. But there is one thing that’s changed for them.

“When we were on the same team, we won it too many times,” Flick said with a laugh. “So they told us to split.”

Flick, a sophomore on Penn’s famous 1979 Final Four squad, helped make sure his team would get the best of Greene’s, drilling back-to-back buckets in the final couple of minutes to seal the victory.

Bob Weinhauer – who coached Flick on both the ’79 team and in Saturday’s alumni game – gave a hearty cheer every time his old player made a shot. (Earlier, Weinhauer joked Flick was the only player on his team whose name he knew.)

“They ran up and down the court too fast for me in the first half,” Flick said. “By the time, I crossed halfcourt, they were taking shots. So I told Coach to put me in for the last six minutes and I’ll do you right.”

Schiffner (3) looks on as Onyekwe lines up a free throw

While Flick and Greene are mainstays from the older generation of Quakers, the 2012 alumni game marked the first one for Ugonna Onyekwe C’03, who enjoyed the opportunity to reconnect with some old teammates like Mike Jordan C’00, Geoff Owens C’01 and Jeff Schiffner C’04.

He even noticed that a lot of things haven’t changed. For instance, Schiffner is still almost automatic from three-point land, the 7-foot Owens (married with children to the best Penn women’s basketball player of all-time, Diana Caramanico C’01) can still block shots and Jordan, well, still likes to run his mouth while out on the floor.

Jordan, who was guarded by Penn head coach Jerome Allen for much of the game, led the Red team with 11 points while Onyekwe also scored 11 to pace the Blue squad.

Allen - Penn's head coach - defends Jordan

“It was nice running up and down the floor with them again,” Onyekwe said. “Mike was still talking as much trash as always. But that’s Mike. It brought back a lot of good memories.”

Second on Penn’s all-time scoring leaderboard with 1,762 career points, Onyekwe recently retired from an eight-year professional career in Spain and Israel because of a nagging knee injury. He now lives in New York City and hopes to get into the media entertainment industry. Staying in touch with former Penn basketball players could help him develop his post-playing career.

Greene, who was appointed to the Penn basketball board this past summer, truly hopes basketball alums across all generations will be able to stay connected (whether through Twitter, LinkedIn or other forms of social media) and that seeing old friends at the alumni game “isn’t just a once-a-year thing.”

“What we want to do is help Jerome, financially as mentors for the current team, but also to network with each other and help each other as we go through the many transitions in our life,” said Greene, who during a break in action of Penn’s thrilling 61-59 victory over Columbia on Saturday presented athletic director Steve Bilsky C’71 with a check for $50,000 raised by the basketball alums.

Another important part of Saturday’s alumni game was afterwards when Greene presented the wife of Dr. Joseph Pandolfi with a signed basketball. Pandolfi, who died this past summer, was Penn’s team doctor in the 70s and later an avid Quaker basketball supporter. Greene said Pandolfi helped get him a summer job back when he was at school and did similar things for many other Penn basketball players over the past four decades.

“He was just a tremendous human being,” Greene said. “He was a part of our family.”

For so many years, it’s been Penn and Princeton playing crucial games with the Ivy League basketball championship hanging in the balance. Not this year. If the Quakers want to go dancing in March, they’ll have to go through Harvard – and they’ll almost certainly need to topple the nationally ranked Crimson in tonight’s highly anticipated Ivy showdown.

Considering Harvard last made the NCAA tournament in 1946 while Penn has captured 25 Ivy League championships, there hasn’t been much of a rivalry between these two programs over the years. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any memorable games between them. Everyone remembers last season’s wildly entertaining double overtime thriller at the Palestra, but there have been some other good ones too. Here’s a look back at five of them:

Feb. 19, 1971 – Penn 103, Harvard 72

Like many other Penn-Harvard games, this one was lopsided in the Quakers’ favor. But coming into this contest, Harvard had won seven straight and, according to former Penn center Jim Wolf C’71, “had thought they finally put together the team to beat us.” They hadn’t. That Crimson team, which featured sophomores Floyd Lewis and James Brown (now a famous sportscaster), was certainly a good one but, as this game shows, not nearly at the same level as the 1970-71 Quakers, who dismantled a few squads on their way to a league title and perfect regular season.

Jan. 22, 1974 – Penn 55, Harvard 53

In his game recap for The Crimson, Jefferson Flanders (perhaps the most apt name for a Harvard student ever) pens, “The Palestra in Philadelphia is a Mecca for basketball enthusiasts, and the ancient snakepit seems to inspire the Harvard basketball team, only to snatch success away in the waning moments of a game. On Saturday night the pattern was repeated as Harvard lost to Penn, 55-53, in the last second of play.” Sadness for Harvard was sheer joy for the Quakers, who won on an off-balance buzzer-beater from guard John Beecroft, who scooped up a deflection after a miss from teammate Henry Johnson. Watch the play here, courtesy of the terrific archives at letsgoquakers.com.

Jan. 9, 1987 – Harvard 93, Penn 91, OT

Before there was Black Tuesday, there was this. With 11:50 remaining in the 1987 Ivy League opener, Penn held a commanding 19-point lead, before Harvard stormed all the way back to tie the game at 83-83 with 34 seconds left. The Quakers missed a chance to win at the end of regulation but looked to be in good shape when they took a two-point lead with 33 seconds left in OT on a John Stovall bucket. That’s when all hell broke loose. First, Harvard’s Neil Phillips tied the game with nine seconds left. Then, Harvard’s Keith Webster stole the ball at halfcourt, took a few dribbles and beat the buzzer to lift the Crimson to the dramatic victory. You really have to watch this great finish (and call). Despite the heartbreaking loss, Bruce Lefkowitz, Perry Bromwell and the rest of the Quakers went on to win the 1987 Ivy title (with a 10-4 league mark and 13-14 record overall).

Feb. 19, 1994 – Penn 66, Harvard 65

It’s well known that head coach Jerome Allen did not lose an Ivy League game during his final three seasons as a player at Penn (1993-95). But there were a few closes calls along the way. Just take a look at this 1994 battle at Lavietes Pavilion when the Quakers were held scoreless over the final two minutes and needed a block from Tim Krug on Harvard’s Tarik Campbell in the final seconds to escape Cambridge with their 24^th straight Ivy League win. In the Philadelphia Inquirer recap from Mike Jensen (who remains one of the best college hoops writers in the business), Penn captain Barry Pierce was quoted as saying, “We were just sitting back waiting for them to fold. They didn’t. They were in our face the whole game.” For the record, Allen scored 13 points in the win while recent Big 5 Hall of Fame inductee Matt Maloney led Penn with 16.

Feb. 24, 2006 – Penn 74, Harvard 71, OT

More than a decade after Allen led Penn to three straight Ivy titles, another Penn guard – Ibrahim Jaaber – accomplished the same feat. And it was because of games like these. Jaaber, one of the best all-around players in Penn history, matched his career-high with 31 points, including the go-ahead three pointer in overtime, to stave off the Crimson’s upset bid. Center Brian Cushworth (22 points, 16 rebounds) was the star for Harvard, hitting a clutch game-tying three-pointer in the final minute of regulation. With already one loss in the league, that win was critical in helping Penn capture the Ivy crown in what turned out to be Fran Dunphy’s final season as Penn’s head coach.