A bench opinion

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In the tradition of the Supreme Court, which has been in the news so much lately, I'm going to concur in part and dissent in part with Jeff's post below.

I concur that the attendance (3,817) was lousy, and that tonight's will be higher. I'd like to think that this will be based on more than just the Yale band being in the house, but then again I usually eat my dinner at the Palestra on game nights.

I dissent, though, from Jeff's disappointment with the final score. Yes, Brown is awful, but tonight's game matters a lot more. So I thought it was a very good thing to see Penn only have to push down the gas pedal for about five minutes of play, because it allows the Quakers to conserve energy for tonight's game. Honestly, I would have liked to see Fran Dunphy pull some of the starters a little earlier. Brown hit a couple threes in the final minutes of the second half, but that game was over really early and everyone knew it. I think it would have not hurt Dunphy to bring in Kevin Egee, Brennan Votel and Cameron Lewis a little earlier. I was actually impressed with Lewis' two minutes on the floor, and the intensity with which he got his lone rebound.

Still, the energy saved from allowing the starters to rest for a significant portion of the game -- Eric Osmundson was the minutes leader with 31 -- will help a lot this evening. I'm sure Yale will be more than a little annoyed at having lost to Princeton last night, and that saved up gas in the Quakers' tank could make a big difference.