Game 6: Penn 74, Lafayette 65
While the Leopards did not present much of a test to Penn's offense, especially in the paint, there were still two things worth noting last night.
It's news enough these days that Penn won a basketball game, in this case beating Lafayette 74-65 at the Palestra. And while the Leopards did not present much of a test to Penn's offense, especially in the paint, there were still two things worth noting last night.
The first is that the Quakers summoned enough defensive resolve to battle back from an eight-point deficit. It wasn't a huge deficit, and it wasn't a huge amount of defense either, but it was enough to make a difference. Let's see if Penn can do that for something closer to 40 minutes as the season goes on.
The second is that it Zack Rosen and Miles Cartwright can play together on the floor. Both players are nominally point guards, but they are also versatile enough that they can create space and opportunities for themselves off the ball. Playing both at the same time also gives Jerome Allen an element of surprise, as either player can bring the ball up the floor and set up plays.
Lafayette coach Fran O'Hanlon admitted after the game that the Rosen-Cartwright tandem made it more difficult to set up his team's defense. Both players had to be accounted for, and that created space for other players to exploit. It may not be a coincidence that Tyler Bernardini had what I thought was his best game of the season last night.
You can listen to audio of both teams' postgame press conferences below. There's also the transcript of my live blog, and the Crunchy Numbers compilation I put together before tipoff. Note that it was compiled before the La Salle-Providence game in Cancún, which started at 4:30 p.m.