The Penn Quakers first loss of the season to Delaware State was encouraging, the second loss to Rider did not contain hardly any positive takeaways. Tonight's loss to Lafayette was somewhere in between. Penn certainly had the momentum going their way in the second half, coming as close as 62-60 to the Leopards, but ultimately turned the momentum back over by not making the most of defensive stops en route to an 83-77 loss.
The Leopards were up 45-30 at the half and looked to continue that as the second half began. This was when Antonio Woods and Tony Hicks hit back-to-back threes, Penn's first threes of the game, to jump start the offense. The Quakers were able to bring it as close as 62-60, but at that point were not able to capitalize on any of three straight defensive stops.
Tony Hicks tied a Penn record tonight with 13 assist, in addition to his 14 points, but it was the young guns that helped keep Penn in the game. Freshman Mike Auger led the team with 18 points on 7-10 shooting and was only 1 assist away from being the second man with a double-double tonight. Auger is the Quakers' clear catalyst and brought the energy necessary tonight to jump start Penn's offense, which coach Jerome Allen described a "lethargic".
Lafayette had a night from the three point line, scoring 27 points from the beyond the arch. Dan Trist was the high scorer for the Leopards with 22 points. Joey Ptasinski had 18 points, 15 off three pointers, to help contribute to the win.
It was ultimately the first half that did Penn in. The team is still struggling to find itself offensively and committed 9 turnovers in the first. They did bring that number down to 5 in the second half when they settled down a bit.
Jerome Allen stated in his press conference that he is not going to rely on the team's youth as a factor for not getting it done on the court. He shouldn't have to either. The starters for Penn only scored 1 more point than the bench (containing 60% freshmen) at 39-38. As the roles get more clearly defined to the Quakers they should start to develop, hopefully hitting their stride before Ivy League play begins.
Things won't get much easier for Penn this Tuesday as the head to North Philly to take on the Temple Owls in the first Big 5 matchup of the season. Tip off is at 7:00pm.
-Ben Lebo
Follow us on Twitter: @BroadStBeat
Tony Hicks tied a Penn record tonight with 13 assist, in addition to his 14 points, but it was the young guns that helped keep Penn in the game. Freshman Mike Auger led the team with 18 points on 7-10 shooting and was only 1 assist away from being the second man with a double-double tonight. Auger is the Quakers' clear catalyst and brought the energy necessary tonight to jump start Penn's offense, which coach Jerome Allen described a "lethargic".
Lafayette had a night from the three point line, scoring 27 points from the beyond the arch. Dan Trist was the high scorer for the Leopards with 22 points. Joey Ptasinski had 18 points, 15 off three pointers, to help contribute to the win.
It was ultimately the first half that did Penn in. The team is still struggling to find itself offensively and committed 9 turnovers in the first. They did bring that number down to 5 in the second half when they settled down a bit.
Jerome Allen stated in his press conference that he is not going to rely on the team's youth as a factor for not getting it done on the court. He shouldn't have to either. The starters for Penn only scored 1 more point than the bench (containing 60% freshmen) at 39-38. As the roles get more clearly defined to the Quakers they should start to develop, hopefully hitting their stride before Ivy League play begins.
Things won't get much easier for Penn this Tuesday as the head to North Philly to take on the Temple Owls in the first Big 5 matchup of the season. Tip off is at 7:00pm.
-Ben Lebo
Follow us on Twitter: @BroadStBeat
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