Inconsistency plagues M. Hoops early

NEW HAVEN -- Hot and cold. On and off. Streaky. These are just a few ways to describe the Penn men's basketball team's performance over the past four games. Penn coach Fran Dunphy, discouraged by his team's sporadic play, commented on the Quaker's inability to put together a solid 40 minutes after the loss to Yale. "Consistency has been our biggest problem," Dunphy said. "We have to play more solidly in stretches." We have bad stretches in games and I wish we could eliminate that. It is something we will have to continue to work hard at for the rest of the season until we solve this problem." At no time was Penn's inconsistent play more evident than this past weekend. In the opening minutes of the contest versus Brown at the Pizzitola Sports Center, the Quakers looked out of sync and fell behind 13-9 before the Red and Blue snapped out of it. Putting together a 27-4 run to end the first half, Penn completely overpowered the Bears. During this run the Quakers nailed three straight treys and stepped up their defensive pressure, forcing five turnovers. The sweet shooting from behind the arc was similar to the contest versus Temple only two days earlier. In that contest at the Apollo, where Penn was eventually dropped 67-58, the Quakers went on a late tear to pull within three points after being down by 15. The streak was again sparked by the Penn's three point shooters. Jed Ryan nailed three consecutive treys before the Owls regained their composure to hold on for a win. This past Saturday night at the John L. Lee Amphitheater, Penn was never able to put together a dominating run and it was Yale who turned the tables and used several streaks of their own to keep Penn at bay. Yale jumped out to a 12-4 run early in the second half to extend its lead to ten points before Penn bounced back by netting ten unanswered points. Minutes later, the Bulldogs put together a run of their own that eventually led to a tie. Failing to regain its outside touch, Penn was shutout for the three of the five minutes in the overtime period. During this scoreless stretch by the Quakers, Yale strung together seven straight points and held on to 71-70 victory. It is not unusual for a team such as Penn, which relies heavily on its perimeter game, to have a tendency to be inconsistent. On each given night the Quakers will only be as good as its outside shooting. What Dunphy commented on after the Yale game is the ways in which Penn will have to combat this problem. A combination of working the ball around and finding a good shot and to play harder at the defensive end. "We have done a better job of cutting down our opposition's second chances, but we need to continue to work at that," Dunphy said. Following the Brown contest during which Penn shot 54 percent (this included 7 of 12 from behind the arc), Dunphy remarked on how a good night from the field is not necessarily the best measuring stick for his team. "I know we are a pretty good shooting team," Dunphy. "But there were certain stretches tonight when we did not take care of the ball as well as I would have liked us to and despite our good shooting percentage we can't afford to make these same mistakes against better opponents." Sure enough, Dunphy's words came back to haunt him the following evening. Each of Yale's streaks in regulation and overtime resulted from Quakers' turnovers and poor shooting.

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