City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
—

Penn brought in Fran McCaffery as head coach this past offseason to get the Quakers back to the top of the Ivy League. 

They’ll start with the Big 5. 

An 84-68 win over Drexel on Friday night at the Daskalakis Athletic Center has Penn in the Big 5 championship game on Dec. 6. It’s the first time in three years of the new Big 5 format that the Quakers will get a chance to play for the title; they’ll play either Temple or Villanova, who play each other on Monday Dec. 1 for the right to advance.

“It’s just exciting, we’re excited about our team in general,” senior wing Ethan Roberts said at the post-game podium. “Having Coach Fran, an alum, back here, it’s so much more energy, and I feel love for the program, too. It feels like things are going in the right direction and the Big 5 championship was marked on our calendar as something we wanted to do, it’s exciting that we’re coming together right now and we got the job done.

“It’s probably my favorite season I’ve played of basketball, ever, so far,” he added.

Penn's win assures that St. Joe's won't win the Big 5 for a third consecutive season. More importantly, it gives McCaffery an early accomplishment just five games into his first season at his alma mater, this week a nice bounce-back after losses to Providence and American the one before. 

"I think everybody knows the respect I have for the Big 5 and its history, and also for the level of talent and coaching among all the teams," McCaffery said. "We just beat two really good teams, two really well-coached teams and we’ll get to play another one. I’m excited for our players, I’me excited for our school, for our fanbase, that has really followed this program intensely for so many years."

Roberts continued his outstanding play to open the season, hitting the 30-point barrier for the second game in a row, finishing with that number on the nose after scoring 31 in a win over St. Joe’s on Sunday. The 6-foot-5 wing entered play Friday tied for 12th in Division I in scoring (23.2 ppg); his new average of 24.6 ppg would put him in fourth depending on what else happens around the country. 

He got it done in all sorts of ways for the Quakers (3-2, 2-0 Big 5) on Friday night, shooting 11-of-18 from the floor (2-6 3PT) and 6-of-6 from the foul line while grabbing eight rebounds (three offensive) and three steals with two assists and just one turnover in 35 minutes on the floor. He was hitting in the mid-range, threw in a few floaters, and had a nice kiss off the glass on a runner to boot. 

The former Patriot League Rookie of the Year when he was at Army, Roberts averaged 16.8 ppg and 5.6 rpg last year on .430/.371/.821 splits, but he’s taken his game to another level on offense out of the gate this year. 

“What’s been going well for me has been getting lost in competition, that’s kind of our motto,” he said. “I’ve got a great staff around me that develops me and teammates that care about me so it’s easy to play good. [...] I think it was a natural fit in Coach McCaffery’s system, but I work really hard, so there is a little bit of expectation that I get a little better each season.”

Coming off that win over the Hawks on Monday after two consecutive losses, it feels like the Quakers are starting to figure out a winning formula. Offensively, that starts with the trio of Roberts, junior wing T.J. Power and senior guard Michael Zanoni, who’d accounted for about 56% of the Quakers’ scoring thus far this season. 

That was a trend which continued against Drexel, as those three combined for 60 points, with Power scoring 16 (5-11 FG, 7-10 FT) and Zanoni adding 12 (3-10 FG, 4-4 FT). That’s the fourth game in double digits in a row for Power, the former four-star recruit who looks like he’s getting back to form after a couple quiet years at Duke and Virginia and a preseason injury this year. 

“I try not to focus on the shooting,” he said. “These past few games, I feel like I focus on playing hard and everything falls behind that, and I knew at some point that would settle in.”

Friday night, they also got standout point guard play from sophomore A.J. Levine. Levine was stellar against Drexel, finishing with seven points, five rebounds and seven assists without a turnover in more than 32 minutes on the court, finishing with a team-high +23 rating. 

He also knocked down perhaps the dagger of the evening, a corner 3-pointer with the shot clock at one, putting Penn up 79-62 with just over two minutes to play. 

“He set the tone early pushing the ball, attacking the defense,” McCaffery said. “They do a pretty good job extending their defense into the backcourt, and he blew it up with his speed [...] he works and he fights, and I’ll tell you what, he’s going to keep getting better.”

As a team, the Quakers shot 27-of-54 (50%) from the floor and 8-of-22 (36.4%) from the 3-point line. The Dragons shot 27-of-64 (42.2%) from the floor and 7-of-18 (38.9%) from beyond the arc.

The Quakers finished 22-of-28 from the foul line, with Power and Roberts going 13-of-16, and won the rebound battle 40-33; the Dragons as a team were 7-of-17 from the stripe and had more turnovers (nine) than assists (eight).

“This was a disappointing outcome, I think that’s an obvious statement for us right here,” Drexel coach Zach Spiker said. “It’s been a bit of a theme in our losses, we have to find a way to defend without fouling. They did a good job of putting that pressure on us, we’ve got to find a way to defend without fouling and find a way to put that pressure on the other end.”

Penn never trailed as it held the lead for more than 39 minutes. It was close for most of the first 25 minutes, the Quakers holding a 43-38 lead at the break, but they started to put some distance between themselves and the hosts to begin the second half. 

Drexel (2-4, 0-2) went nearly seven minutes without scoring as Penn increased the lead to 12 by the 13:07 mark; after a Dragons 3-pointer, the Quakers scored eight of the next 10 to push the gap to 17. Cam Thrower hit two 3-pointers for Penn during that span, though he limped off after the second one.

The advantage hit 20 for the first time with 4:53 to play on a Roberts layup. Drexel got within 14 just past the three-minute mark, but the lead was never really in danger.

~~~

Reed picking it up for Drexel

If there was one good takeaway for the Dragons on Friday, it was the play of sophomore guard Josh Reed. 

The Archbishop Wood product went for a career-high 21 points in 25 minutes off the bench, shooting 9-14 from the floor and hitting both of his 3-point attempts. He was also the only Drexel player with a positive plus-minus (+2) on the evening. 

“I was just trying to be physical,” he said. “Knew it was going to be a physical game coming in, so I was trying to be physical.”

Reed played in 16 minutes in his first year at Drexel, averaging 1.2 ppg and 1.4 rpg in limited minutes, going 8-of-28 (28.6%) from the floor. But he was used to that — as a freshman at Wood, he also sat behind a talented group of seniors, then burst onto the scene as a sophomore. 

“It helped me to stay patient, wait my turn, not rush the process,” he said. “It helped a lot.”

His second year of college thus far has been inconsistent, but certainly a significant step forward from before. 

Reed scored 17 points in 25 minutes in the season-opening win over Widener, then added 12 more in 26 minutes against St. Joe’s. But he went scoreless in each of the next two games, playing a total of 12 minutes against Colgate and Syracuse, before bouncing back somewhat with nine points in 22 minutes against NJIT on Tuesday. 

He had by far his biggest impact on Friday night as he was constantly getting around screens and slashing to the hoop, something he was able to do with relative ease against an otherwise-tough Quaker defense. 

“Josh Reed at his best is a downhill, aggressive driving guard who can finish at the rim,” Spiker said, then alluded to the pair of triples: “If you back off him and give him space and he steps up and hits two 3s, really becomes a tough coverage and that’s him at his best.”

~~~

Up Next

Penn (3-2, 2-0 Big 5) will play in the Cathedral Classic at the Palestra next weekend, beginning with a game against Merrimack on Friday at 2:30 PM. 

Drexel (2-4, 0-2 Big 5) will play at home on Sunday against Old Dominion (2 PM)

~~~