When Zack Rosen left the game after picking up his second foul in the opening three minutes, Davidson coach Bob McKillop must have been breathing a sigh of relief.
Rosen, the preseason favorite to win Ivy League Player of the Year, was replaced by freshman Miles Cartwright, who was being asked to run the Penn offense in his first collegiate minutes.
“I can’t even lie, I was nervous all day, nervous all week,” Cartwright said, “and then to go out there that early in the game, I was just kind of shaking a little bit.”
McKillop probably didn’t have a strong scouting report on the Van Nuys, Calif., native, but it wouldn’t have mattered. No one in the Palestra expected what happened next.
Cartwright didn’t just fill in admirably while Rosen was forced to the bench for the majority of the first half. He took over the game.
“I knew we were going to need him, in order to win the game, in some facet,” Allen said. “But he led the group. That’s what playmakers do.”
Cartwright penetrated the lane with dribble drives and made tough, acrobatic finishes in a crowd. He showed off his long-range jumper, hitting 2-of-4 from beyond the arc. He drew fouls and knocked down all four of his free throws. His ball pressure created turnovers, which he converted into points on the fast break.
“He was terrific,” McKillop said. “He played with absolute abandon, with tremendous confidence and made all the right decisions.”
In 27 minutes, Cartwright tallied 18 points on 6-for-8 shooting, three steals and two assists. In the first half alone, he set a program record for points by a freshman in a season debut.
“Once the ball got in my hands and [I] went up a couple of times, it was basketball, plain and simple,” he said.
After Cartwright came up limp in the second half, he spent ten minutes on the sideline nursing his injury. When he returned, the freshman played a secondary role while Rosen took back the reins.
But in a vote of confidence, Cartwright was still on the floor with the game on the line.
“How he just responds to everything is kind of amazing to me,” Allen said. “He had a little poise about himself, and he just made plays.”
Cartwright is already Penn’s most heralded freshman since Rosen — who went scoreless and shot 0-for-6 in his debut two years ago against North Carolina.
It may be presumptuous to jump to conclusions after just one game, but Cartwright may be a special player. At the very least, he and Rosen should form a stellar backcourt over the next two years.
“I’m just appreciative that I have the opportunity to coach him,” Allen said, “because I think he’s going to have a solid career.”
ARI SEIFTER is a senior computer and cognitive science major from Ellicott City, Md., and is former Associate Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. He can be contacted at dpsports@theDP.com.
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