Carrol's hot hand spurs Hawks' potent backcourt

Big 5 basketball games can be surprising. Whether the Penn loss to Saint Joseph's on Saturday night at the Palestra was surprising or not is open to debate. The strong play of St. Joe's both offensively and defensively was not a surpise at all, no debating that. Entering Saturday night's game with an impressive 13-2 record, the Hawks had their sights set on knocking off the defending Big 5 champion Quakers before a raucous crowd of almost 9,000. Penn was well aware of the hype surrounding the game against St. Joe's, and of the firepower that the Hawks would bring to West Philly. Junior guard Jameer Nelson and his backcourt partner, sophomore Delonte West, headlined the Hawks' act entering Saturday night's contest. Nelson came into the game averaging 18.5 points per game to go along with 5.1 rebounds per game. While West hasn't garnered the media attention and recognition that Nelson has, he entered the Penn game averaging 17.1 points and just under five rebounds per game. To say that the St. Joe's backcourt demanded Penn's attention would be a bit of an understatement. While the Quakers made their best attempts to slow down Nelson and West, the two were still able to leave their marks on Saturday night's game. Nelson, in typical fashion, paced the Hawks with 18 points. His 4-for-15 shooting from the field -- three of which were from behind the arc -- was bolstered by his 7-for-8 performance from the free throw line. West also found a way to score against the Penn defense, finishing the game with 15 points on a subpar 6-for-17 shooting. Were Nelson and West's performances a surpise to anyone in the Palestra? Not really. Actually, at times, it looked as though the Penn defense was doing a solid job against the Hawks' two guards. After the game, Dunphy was satisfied with his team's defensive effort. "We obviously concentrated a lot of our efforts on Delonte [West] and Jameer [Nelson]," he said. "And if you look at it, 10-for-32 [combined shooting], I thought Schiff [Jeff Schiffner] and Andy Toole did a very good job defensively." The hot hand of St. Joe's sophomore forward Pat Carroll largely made up for Penn's strong defensive performance against St. Joe's most potent offensive weapons. Carroll entered the game averaging just under eleven points per game with his sweet shooting touch -- 45.6 percent from behind the arc. Penn concentrated the majority of its defensive efforts on West and Nelson alone, leaving itself exposed to Carroll's offensive assault. The sophomore finished the day with 16 points, including 5 timely three pointers. "We let Carroll get some air in the first half, which hurt us... The last play of the first half was a big play," Dunphy said. "If we could have gotten that shot to go down, and then Carroll hits that big three. Those were big plays right there." The 'big play' at the end of the first half was Carroll's fourth three-pointer of the game, which came after an Andrew Toole miss at the other end and extended the Hawks' lead to 13 heading into halftime. These types of plays, created by a player other than Nelson and West, were what made Saturday night's game surpising. Not the the 8,722 crazed fans or the offensive production of the Hawks' backcourt, but the hot hand of a player that neither Penn nor probably St. Joe's counted on.

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