Penn splits two close matchups

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- If there is one weekend that defined the 1996-97 Penn basketball team, it had to be this one. In two nights, the Quakers gave a sort of Cliffs Notes version of their story, with the full chapters of inside struggle, inexperience and impatience as well as represented as enthusiasm, clutch shooting and team defensive stands. In the end, it was appropriate that the Quakers, who have looked alternately world-beaters and also-rans, returned from their last Ivy road weekend with a split, a 72-69 victory over Dartmouth, helping Princeton clinch the Ivy League title, and a 76-67 overtime defeat at the hands of Harvard. Penn also split both home-and-home season series. Friday night in Hanover, N.H., Penn (10-13, 6-5 Ivy League) revisited Leede Arena, the site of the end of its historic 48-game league winning streak a year later. While the squad claims that never crossed its mind, memories of losing to the Big Green at the Palestra two weeks ago were certainly present. "A couple of weeks ago, that was upsetting to us," Penn junior guard Garett Kreitz said. "That was in the back of our minds, the way they celebrated? the way they treated the game at our gym." It looked like the emotion of Dartmouth's seniors in their last home weekend would carry them, as the hosts ran out to a 12-0 lead in the opening four minutes. While Penn never really got the Big Green All-Ivy swingman Sea Lonergan (a game-high 26 points) under control, they were able to limit the damage of his supporting cast and claw to within two at the half, 34-32. The Quakers hung close in the second half and took the lead at 58-57 with nine minutes to play. "We made runs and they just wouldn't go away, right from the beginning," Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher said. "It was pretty easy to tell it was going to come down to one of those [close] games." With a minute left, Penn found itself down three points, but freshman guard Michael Jordan hit a quick jumper to pull within a point. After a Quakers timeout, Jordan shocked Dartmouth point guard Kenny Mitchell by stealing the ball in the backcourt. Two timeouts later, Kreitz (team-high 18 points) connected from 17 feet for a 70-69 Quakers advantage. Dartmouth had 25 seconds for a final possession. After Dartmouth center Brian Gilpin's shot was blocked out of bounds by Geoff Owens, the Big Green set another play for Gilpin, who got open but missed. Kreitz added two foul shots for the final margin. It was a triumph for Penn, but especially for the freshman center, who had a career-high 14 points and avoided his personal plague -- foul trouble. "I think in the second half I realized I was shooting the ball pretty well and the team needed me in the game to guard Gilpin," Owens said. Things appeared to going much more smoothly for Penn Saturday night in Briggs Cage. After a slow start, Penn ran off a 17-0 first-half run and seemed to be coasting to a 13th-consecutive win over the Crimson (15-9, 8-4). "Our defense was terrible," said Harvard senior forward Kyle Snowden, an All-Ivy pick a year ago. "I give Penn a lot of credit; they worked the ball around and created a lot of easy shots." But with 6:21 left in the game and Penn up 49-43, Paul Romanczuk picked up his fifth foul and fourth of the second half in only four minutes of play. The sophomore forward finished with 11 points on 5-of-5 shooting from the floor, and his loss proved, in the words of Harvard coach Frank Sullivan, "absolutely huge." "He doesn't do us much good sitting on the bench," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We don't have much of an inside presence without him. We needed him in the game." After Romanczuk left the contest, Penn's supply of inside points dried up. In the six minutes of regulation and five minutes of overtime left, the Quakers would not get another lay-up. Meanwhile, Harvard's dormant inside game was awakening. Snowden, who had only two points in the first half, ran off nine straight en route to 19 for the game. His partner up front, senior Chris Grancio, recorded a season-high 26. Still, Harvard needed a last-second 19-footer from point guard Tim Hill, originally called a three, but then judged to have his foot on the line to send the game to overtime. The play was designed for the red-hot Snowden, but finding the passing lanes clogged, Hill took the shot himself. Overtime was anti-climactic, with Harvard scoring easily and the Quakers impatient on offense. Two quick shots on their first two possessions, coupled with a Snowden jumper, Grancio baseline shot, and a Snowden free throw left Penn down 63-58. The Quakers never got closer than three and Harvard was ecstatic. "That was my eighth game against Penn and we'd never beaten them," said Snowden, who also called the contest the "greatest moment" of his career. "It was just a matter of time."

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