Traveling to the nation's first state, it was a night of firsts for many members of the Penn men’s basketball squad.
Freshman guard Miles Cartwright made his first collegiate start, junior center Mike Howlett made a game appearance for the first time since his injury earlier in the preseason and senior forward Jack Eggleston became the first Penn player in four years to hit the 1,000 point mark.
But arguably the evening’s most monumental accomplishment was not a first, but a second. Junior captain Zack Rosen tied his career-high 30 points to lead the Quakers to a 78-68 victory over the Blue Hens (4-5) Wednesday night in Newark, Del., while redeeming last season’s 97-94 double-overtime loss to Delaware.
“When we needed stops, we got stops,” coach Jerome Allen said. “When we needed buckets, we got buckets. So I’m proud of the guys and where they’re at.”
But Allen may not have been so optimistic at halftime — the Red and Blue (5-4) started off sluggish in the first frame, shooting 10-for-29 on field goal attempts and a dismal 1-for-11 from behind the arc.
“We just weren’t hitting our shots,” Rosen said. “If we had hit our shots, we wouldn’t be talking about this.”
But Penn turned on the offense after the break. Rosen, who shot 1-for-7 in field goals and 0-for-4 from behind the line in the first half, came up big for the Quakers when they needed him most. He and Cartwright, making the most out of his first collegiate start — combined for 50 points, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of Penn’s total offense.
“He’s our leader, and when he can get it going, we want to be there to support him any way we can,” Cartwright said. “That’s what I was trying to do today, just trying to play off of him. And once he got it going, I think it lifted all of our play up.”
Eggleston’s individual statistics were also elevated to a new level. The Noblesville, Ind., native, who has averaged 13.8 points per game this season, entered the game with 995 career points to his name. Because of Penn’s lacking offense in the first half, however, he reached the landmark on a second-half layup and became the 35th Penn player to join the ranks of the 1,000-point club.
“He’s had a phenomenal career,” Allen said. “He’s one of the most important guys for us on the floor. I ask him to play four positions for us sometimes. I’m just happy, and I’m appreciative.”
While the Quakers were determined to stop Delaware’s Jawan Carter — the guard averages 15.8 points per game, and netted 35 points against Penn in last season’s matchup — junior guard Rob Belcore and the Quakers defense couldn’t keep Carter from scoring 21 points.
“Jawan Carter is a tough guard, he’s a tough guard, and not in terms of the word, but in terms of the position,” Allen said. “He’s just tough to defend. But Rob Belcore just exhausted himself trying to make him work for everything that he got. He made some tough shots.”
Despite allowing five treys from Carter, the Red and Blue didn’t have much else to be upset about.
“This is a huge win, huge win,” Cartwright said. “I mean, just for us to get a win on the road is huge — we’ve struggled on the road. We just wanted to come in and try to be as sharp as possible.
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