Brown bags the rematch

With his team sitting on a 16-point cushion at halftime, Brown coach Jesse Agel gave his team one simple instruction.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

The Bears withstood a late Penn rally to escape the Palestra with an 80-73 win Friday night. And unlike the last time the two teams met, there was no disputing who came out on top.

While Agel was irate back in January after officials ruled that Dan Monckton’s put-back attempt beat the buzzer to give Penn a 55-54 win, the coach dismissed the notion that Friday’s victory meant a little more to his team.

“Anything for us as we’re trying to build our program is good,” Agel said. “There was no added significance to winning.”

The Bears bested the Quakers on the strength of a late first-half push. Brown made 16 of its 24 shots before the break to open up a 41-25 lead.

“We were able to get some easy buckets,” Agel said. “Easy if you’ve got Matt Mullery [as] the one shooting them.”

Mullery, Brown’s All-Ivy big man, finished the game with a dominating 22 points on 9-for-12 shooting, 11 rebounds and three blocks against a Penn team that seemed perplexed on defense.

“I just think as a unit, we have to play with more of a sense of urgency,” Penn coach Jerome Allen said.

Penn’s Zack Rosen, who put forth another valiant effort toward a losing cause — 29 points and a career-high 10 assists — was more critical of his team.

“It was just some lackadaisical basketball,” the point guard said. “I think we came out asleep. I think we were all taking a nap, and then the alarm went off in the second half.”

That second half was played without the services of forward Mike Howlett, who was benched after a brief run early in the game. It was unclear how much Howlett’s recurring foot injury factored into Allen’s choice to take him off the court.

“We made a decision to just try to get out and play a little faster, be a little bit more aggressive,” said Allen, who went with a smaller-sized lineup coming out of halftime.

The strategy proved to be effective, with the Quakers keeping the game within reach by increasing the tempo.

But despite orchestrating a late burst that cut the lead to as little as four with 1:05 to play, the Quakers fell short for the third straight game. Allen was left speaking on his captain’s behalf.

“It’s gotta be disheartening [for Rosen],” Allen said. “Trust me, knowing Zack Rosen, he would have traded in those points and those assists for a victory.”

Rosen was visibly frustrated after the game but pinpointed what his squad needs to improve — even with a depleted roster.

“I think we need to come out with defibrillators on our chests and shock ourselves into thinking it’s the second half when it’s the first half,” he said.

“[But] I feel like we’re doing the best we can with what we got,” he added.

And the feisty Quakers’ leader vowed to keep fighting.

“I’m never gonna give up and the people in that locker room — the staff and the players in there — will never give up,” Rosen said. “We’re gonna keep giving it all we got because the school deserves it.”

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