City of Basketball Love

Dan Newhart (@danny_newhart) &
Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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Opening the season with a new coach, only one senior starter, and the sudden loss of their leading scorer the past two seasons, the Penn Quakers found themselves under a pile of unanswered questions with their first game against the defending Northeast Conference champion Robert Morris Colonials looming.

How would this inexperienced team fare under Donahue’s system? Would it be able to make up for the offensive production lost due to Tony Hicks’ absence?

The game was set to be played on Friday the 13, no less. It’s safe to say the stars didn’t seem to be aligning for Penn.

Despite what seemed to be a sea of unknown surrounding Penn basketball heading into 2015-2016, the Quakers rose to the occasion and gave some resounding answers to those conundrums, opening their campaign with a 76-75 victory and surviving a late surge from Robert Morris.

Sophomore forward Sam Jones led all Quaker scorers in the game with 21 points and three boards, including five three pointers. Junior Matt Howard chipped in 16 points and two rebounds, while Robert Morris senior guard Rodney Pryor led the Colonials with 28 points, eight rebounds and two assists.

Arguably the team’s largest concern was the loss of Hicks two weeks ago. Hicks, who averaged 13.2 points and 3.5 rebounds per game last season decided to leave the team for personal reasons. With the unexpected departure the Quakers lost an undeniable amount of scoring talent, and most importantly Hicks’ senior leadership and experience.

“I think we have enough offensive basketball players, and we’re fortunate, because Tony’s a terrific offensive basketball player," Donahue said. "I think Antonio Woods, and Matt Howard, Darien [Nelson-Henry], Sam and his ability to stretch the floor...I think we have enough guys to play offense, but I think there’s a lot of intangibles there that we have to make sure, just in a game like this, who’s going to step up, who’s going to get the group together, making sure we get the right defense, get a key stop, take care of the ball, and with him as a senior, that’s the stuff that’s more concerning to me.”

Filling the offensive void left by Hicks did not seem to be a problem early on for the Quakers, who put up 44 points in the first half and shot 5-for-16 from long-distance as a team. Capped by a buzzer-beating three ball from sophomore guard Antonio Woods, the Quakers finished the half on a 22-9 run and held a 44-28 advantage at the break.

On the night Penn shot 10-of-26 from downtown, good for a clip of 38.5 percent and a slight improvement compared to last season when the team shot 35 percent from deep. Smith alone shot 3-for-6 from three in the first half. 

“We’ve really been working on our 3-point shots,” Jones said. “We know we need to stretch the floor when we have Darien inside who takes a lot of people on. We know when he passes it out we need to make shots; it’s been a key factor at practice..being able to shoot threes and knock them down.”

Without Hicks and with Henry the only senior  in the starting five, Penn’s lack of experience ended up playing a large role in making the second half much more interesting than the first.

It looked as if it would be more of the same story, with the Quakers maintaining a double-digit lead the majority of the half that got as large as 17 at one point. However, after continuing to battle behind the senior Pryor the Colonials found themselves down just 69-60 at the 6:54 mark after a defensive rebound and three ball at the other end from Pryor.

A 9-2 RMU run ensued, and after freshman Matty McConnell knocked down one-of-two at the line the Penn lead was cut to 71-70.

After an empty Penn possession RMU freshman Kavon Stewart found himself at the line, where he calmly netted both to give the Colonials their first lead since it was 8-7 in the first half.

The teams traded buckets the next two possessions, then with the shot clock running down Pryor slithered into the middle of the lane and was able to finish with a finger roll to give RMU the 75-74 advantage. Donahue called time, and was able to draw up a play where the ball ended up in  the big man Henry’s hands.

Henry took a feed in the middle of the paint from his teammate Woods, made a move and converted what would end up being the game-winning layup with just over 12 seconds remaining. The Colonials would have a chance to answer, but a Pryor jumper fell short just before time expired.       

“Part of me wanted us to, because of what the kids have been through these last few years, figure out a way to win that game,” said Donahue. “I thought it would have been heartbreaking and they wouldn’t have been able to bounce back; that happened to them quite a bit in the past, and I didn’t want that. “

Up next for the Quakers is a matchup with Central Connecticut State Sunday, Nov. 15 with tipoff at 4 pm. The Colonials will look to bounce back in a matchup with Cincinnati, which tips at 2 pm Sunday.