Miller sticks with his guns, but not by choice

HANOVER, N.H. Feb. 24 - A funny thing happened with 8:34 left in the Penn-Dartmouth game Saturday night: the Big Green took the lead.

Mark Zoller's absence in the post set off a chain reaction of defensive lapses after he picked up a pair of early fouls that forced him to sit out all but three minutes of the first half. The Big Green was left with open shots and easy chances low on the blocks.

Penn coach Glen Miller opted to go small without Zoller in the game, giving guards Michael Kach and Tommy McMahon minutes over forwards Justin Reilly and Brennan Votel. As a result, the Quakers went into a variety of zone defenses trying to control the paint, since they would be outsized in man-to-man defense.

At first, they tried a 2-3 zone to lock down the interior. But Dartmouth's duo of Leon Pattman and Johnathan Ball were shredding it, easily finding the seams at the top of the key and the midrange elbow for open jumpers.

Weak perimeter defense "has been a problem all year," Penn tri-captain Ibrahim Jaaber said.

Because the Big Green was pushing the pace in order to quickly exploit those seams in transition and off deadballs, the Quakers were unable to pressure the ball. So they moved to a shifting zone, trying to force passes into the corners where they'd could double-team.

But the Big Green was playing very well Saturday night, staying a step quicker than Penn and moving the ball from the corner down into the post.

Realizing that option was failing as well, Penn switched to a 1-3-1 zone.

"Last game at the Palestra, I felt the game turned in our favor when we went 1-3-1," Miller said.

And at first, it did indeed work Saturday night as well, yielding a couple of steals when Dartmouth tried to drive inside.

But again, the foul trouble came into play: Penn forward Stephen Danley picked up his third foul early into the second half, which forced him to stop coming over from the weak side or getting his body in the way.

"Their guards exploited ours on the outside," Jaaber said. "And our help defense wasn't very good."

Realizing that stopping Dartmouth would be more a matter of the Big Green going cold rather than Penn's defense finding a stop, Miller went back to man later in the second half.

"Nothing really worked," he said. Man-to-man defense got them where they were, he continued, so they were "just going to grind out and see if we could make stops."

In the end, it came down to Jaaber desperately extending a hand in Pattman's face on his three-point attempt that would have tied the game. Hardly the plan Miller had drawn up.

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