M. Hoops can't find 'la canasta' in Puerto Rico

Playing on a court which was in shambles, the Quakers went 1-2 over the break and finished sixth in the eight-team field. CAGUAS, Puerto Rico -- The Penn men's basketball team headed to Puerto Rico to get a taste of paradise, but after dropping two games in the San Juan Shootout, it tasted more like sour grapes. The Quakers were seeded sixth heading into the eight-team tournament and left as the sixth-place team, as coping with a lack of height proved too difficult a task. Not only did Penn drop two of three games, they also lost point guard Michael Jordan along the way. In the final play of Penn's 69-67 win over second-seeded Washington State on Saturday, Jordan rolled his right ankle and is now listed as day-to-day with a sprain. The Quakers (2-2) play Lehigh tomorrow night. Penn's worst game was its finale. The Quakers were simply dominated by the Evansville Aces, 90-66, in the consolation championship Sunday. Just four players accounted for 88 Aces points, most of them from layups and short-range jumpers, but Evansville's strength came from its four coaches, who easily picked apart Penn's offense and defense. "They must have scouted the first two games of this tournament, and did a great job at scouting," Penn forward Paul Romanczuk said. "That's a credit to their whole coaching staff?. When we were setting our fade screens, the whole entire (Evansville) bench was yelling out exactly what the play was." Evansville also pushed the ball on offense, taking advantage of its quick transition game. "We knew they pushed it foul line to foul line," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We made a couple foolish mistakes and that cost us. We gave up a four-point play in transition." Then there were Penn's offensive problems. Guard Matt Langel stepped up to run the point along with freshman Lamar Plummer, who saw his first significant game action versus the Aces. Plummer bucketed 5 of 15 shots and went 3-of-10 from downtown, but committed no turnovers and dished two assists. As evidenced by Plummer's numbers, Penn's perimeter game was shut down by their Missouri Valley Conference foes. The Aces feat was not unique, however, as Washington St. and Dayton also squelched the Quakers offense in the previous rounds. For the tournament, Penn bucketed just 14 of 56 three-pointers (25 percent). After the first-round 71-60 loss to third-seed Dayton, the tournament's eventual runner-up, it was Paul Romanczuk who lifted his game for Penn down low, creating the spark needed to deal the Cougars a come-from-behind loss. In the final two games, Romanczuk, apparently back at 100 percent from his stress fracture, nailed 10 of 14 field goals for 27 points. It was the loss to Dayton that put Penn in the losers bracket and set the matchup with the Cougars. During the Shootout opener, guard Garett Kreitz was the man with the hot hand along with Langel, but the Quakers failed to get anything going in the paint offensively or defensively. Ryan Perryman, the Dayton power forward and Atlantic 10 Player of the Week, almost single-handedly destroyed Penn. Perryman scored 24 points, mostly on open layups or jumpers over the diminutive Penn defense. The Red and Blue came out flat in the first game, and didn't wake up until the end of the third quarter, when they went on a 13-2 run to put themselves on top, 48-46. Then Perryman made his biggest contribution. He scored an easy layup, and bucketed another quick layup after Kreitz had followed his first one with a 14-foot jumper. "Our guys were mature enough and smart enough to continue to go [down low]," Dayton coach Oliver Purnell said. "Because oftentimes, it's easy to get away from going down inside, and when Penn made their run we got rushed? and then we went right back to the well, and Perryman delivered." Against Washington St. on Saturday, Penn didn't get the lead until 3:13 left in the game on a Jordan 10-foot jumper from the key. The Cougars were the second-seeded team in the Shootout, and the greatest disappointment, defeating Puerto Rico-Mayaguez in the battle for seventh place. The tournament concluded with top seed West Virginia defeating Dayton 96-74. In the third-place game, Rice lost, 49-46, to a surprising seventh-seeded South Florida team, which upset Washington St. in the first round before losing to Dayton. Held in Caguas, a small town about 20 miles south of San Juan, the tournament drew about 100 people to its top games. The ramshackle facilities were an embarrassment: duct tape holding the backboards together, wide seams in the court planks, which gave a little when someone would step on them. Still, the San Juan Shootout was one of three tournaments held simultaneously on the island, including the Puerto Rico Shootout and the women's San Juan Shootout. Like all preseason tournaments this year, the San Juan Shootout utilized experimental rules, including a 40-second shot clock (instead of 35) and four 10-minute quarters (instead of two 20-minute halves).

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