Strong early start helps Penn top Yale in Ivy opener

PENN PLAYED the first 11 minutes of its Ivy League opener at the Palestra exactly like a team that had been waiting since last March's loss at Princeton to show that last season was an aberration, that when it got its next chance, it would not waste a moment.

How good were the Quakers in the first half of the first half? Well, they shot 60 percent, and that was not nearly the best part. Yale, a team good enough this season to have won at Boston College and lose by three points at Providence, had as many 35-second shot-clock violations (two) as baskets. Penn's defense, which certainly had been an issue during the non-conference schedule, could not have been much better. All dribbles and passes were contested. Most Yale shots were hurried and/or harried. It was a combination of effort and attention to detail.

Penn was never as good in the last 29 minutes as those first 11. In fact, after shots stopped falling (6-for-19 over the final 20 minutes), the Quakers had to gut out just about the entire second half. And they did, beating a very solid Yale team, 66-58. By the way, it was 24-6 after those first 11 minutes.

The first 14 games of this season were to get ready for the next 14. If Penn (7-8, 1-0 Ivy) can bottle those first 11 minutes, it will be very dangerous in the league.

"It's a game of runs, whether it be putting together consecutive stops or getting consecutive baskets," Penn coach Jerome Allen said. "Our job is trying to manage situations as best we can."

Yale (9-8, 2-1) got within four points three times in the second half, but Penn always got a stop or a score. As easy as Penn made it look at the start, that's how hard Yale made the Quakers work to hold that lead. But Yale never got it to a one-possession game. Penn made its free throws (22 of 25) and just enough timely hoops to get it done. In the end, the big lead was too much for Yale to overcome and Penn got the exact reward its early play deserved.

Yale big man Greg Mangano came in averaging a double-double. Penn, mainly Conor Turley, made him work for his points, but he was really good, scoring 20 points, with eight rebounds and three blocked shots.

"We've got a lot of respect for his game," Penn's Jack Eggleston said.

Mangano and Porter Braswell (19 points) shot 15-for-27 between them. All other Yale players shot 7-for-29.

The tighter the game got, the better Penn freshman guard Miles Cartwright played. He had 13 in the second half, 18 for the game. Point guard Zack Rosen had 16 points and five assists. Eggleston had 13 points and eight rebounds. Tyler Bernardini did not shoot well from the floor, but made all eight of his free throws and finished with 10 points and seven rebounds.

This is Eggleston's last run at the Ivy, and it showed.

"For me and Conor and some older guys, this is the last shot, so we definitely want to come and make the most of it," he said.

It was Cartwright's first Ivy game. It did not show.

"It was great, especially to get the win," he said. "It was very intense. We jumped out on them early . . . We've just got to sustain it."

Yale missed 11 of its first 13 shots and shot just 39.3 percent for the game. Penn's defense was there from start to finish, really there at the start.

"Defensively, I thought we did a tremendous job of extending their offense, made it difficult for them to enter the ball," Allen said. "Mangano was posting up almost at the three-point line . . . Whether the ball goes in the basket at the other end or not, that's neither here nor there. For the most part, I was encouraged as to how focused and locked in all the guys were on the defensive end."

Penn is not an easy to team to guard, because it has scorers all over the floor.

"The key to all that is just how unselfish the group is, how much are they willing to play for one another," Allen said.

On Opening Night in the Ivy, the Quakers would get an A for teamwork. With longevity, however, comes perspective.

"It's not a one-game tournament, it's a 14-game tournament," Eggleston said.

The team got exactly 30 minutes to celebrate after leaving the locker room. Brown, which has lost twice to Yale and lost last night at Princeton, is at the Palestra tonight. Allen was counting down the minutes. As the news conference wound down, it was down to 23. *