No sunk free throws sinks Penn

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — With key starters Tyler Bernardini and Andreas Schreiber out with injuries, Penn basketball coach Glen Miller is finding consistency from his other players.

Unfortunately, it was consistently bad foul shooting that plagued the Quakers in their 73-67 defeat at Navy Friday night.

“I think the game was won at the foul line,” Miller said. “There was a pretty significant differential there.”

Indeed there was: Navy (4-4) made 22 of 27 attempts at the charity stripe, good for 81.5 percent. The Quakers (0-5) sank just nine out of their 17 tries, only 52.9 percent.

This disparity was made all the more glaring by how even the rest of the game appeared.

Penn, led by a combined 36 points from point guard Zack Rosen and forward Jack Eggleston, slightly outshot the Midshipmen from both the field and the three-point line.

Also, the Quakers did a good job containing Navy’s undisputed star, leading scorer Chris Harris.

Sophomore guard/forward Rob Belcore was saddled with the task of stopping the senior from Mechanicsville, Va., who entered the game averaging 21.6 points per game.

Belcore used his superior size and strength to keep Harris off the ball, holding him to just 16 points on 4-for-14 shooting. Six of those 16 came on free throws in the game’s final minutes.

“I consider Rob our best perimeter defender,” Miller said. “Harris scores the ball in so many different ways.”

Good defense in the first twenty minutes was mirrored by an inability to make adequate use of a size disparity in the paint.

“We definitely had an advantage inside,” Eggleston said. “We just didn’t take advantage of it enough.”

Poor inlet passing and ill-advised three-point shooting further hurt the Red and Blue in the first half, and they entered the locker room down 32-29 at the intermission.

The second half saw Rosen put on his best Jordan impersonation, trying to will the Red and Blue back with a cold-blooded rain of trifectas.

The fiery-haired floor general sank all four of his three-point attempts after the break, bringing Penn back from near death again and again.

A three from Rosen after a Conor Turley steal pulled the Quakers to within three with just under three minutes left, and Rosen assisted a long range Belcore jumper that made the score 67-64 with 48 seconds remaining.

But just like against Delaware, the Red and Blue could not perform when they really needed to.

Two missed free throws by Eggleston in the final 20 seconds ended any chances the Quakers had of coming back, as desperation three-pointers clanged off the rim multiple times.

And now Penn is facing the very real possibility of ending fall semester classes without a win.

When asked what his team can do to fix its woes, especially at the foul line, Miller seemed at a loss.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “I don’t have an answer.”

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