M. Hoops | Penn 'D' adjusts, but far too late

When you're down by 25 at halftime, what ensues will inevitably be prettier than what you've just seen.

Penn's 85-73 loss last night to Penn State was no exception. The Quakers whittled a 25-point deficit down to a 10-point one, and it could have been seven had Zack Rosen's open three not rimmed out.

Penn State coach Ed DeChellis spent most of the comeback with his hands jammed petulantly in his pockets and his three best players on the floor. He knew it was coming.

"It's just human nature. You're fighting human nature when you're up 25 points," he said.

"We didn't play as hard as we needed to . They got it going, we started missing some shots, and you start playing a little tighter."

But over that 16-minute, 32-second stretch between "down 25" and "down 10," there was plenty to suggest that Penn's new matchup zone could defend a stronger and vastly more athletic team.

"In the second half, we were pretty much getting anything we wanted, when we had patience and poise," Penn coach Glen Miller said, although he conceded that "the game was over" when Penn's play picked up.

But the Quakers were slow to rotate in that zone in the first half and the Nittany Lions soared to a double-digit lead on a litany of open shots, many of them from deep. They turned the ball over just twice before the break.

To make things worse, Penn State featured a starting backcourt of Stanley Pringle and Talor Battle that could create its own opportunities even when the defense wasn't leaking easily.

"It's supposed to be a good backcourt, and it is." Miller said. "It's a good backcourt, even for the Big 10."

The Penn coach tried to shake things up early by reaching deep into his bench for little-used Remy Cofield at point forward and Cameron Lewis down low. Neither was effective. The open shots kept falling, seven threes in all, and the hole grew deeper.

The 25-point lead could have been larger if the agile Nittany Lion's forwards had converted a few more of the layups and chippies they forged for themselves.

"They got open threes, I give them credit, but what they were doing was guardable," Miller said. "They were just going high-low, sending the cutter through. Simple passes, open shots. There's no excuse for it."

But those shots were contested in the second half - six of 19 fell during the comeback, and the Nittany Lions only scored 22 points in those 16 minutes, compared to 49 in the previous 20.

The personnel did not change much - Penn's starting five of Zack Rosen, Kevin Egee, Tyler Bernardini, Brennan Votel and Jack Eggleston carried most of the load - but the energy did, according to Eggleston.

"The biggest thing was picking up our intensity. That really allowed us to compete defensively . and make better reads," he said.

"Seven-for-10 [on threes in the first half] is a phenomenal percentage," Egee said. "But it wasn't anything with the game plan that we had, it was just us, our focus on defense."

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