Poor defense, lack of energy, careless mistakes doom Tigers from start

Needless to say, committing 15 turnovers was not part of the game plan drawn up by men's basketball head coach John Thompson '88. Neither was allowing Penn to shoot 60 percent from three-point range.

Nonetheless, that's what happened. The first three minutes of the second half were particularly emblematic of Princeton's (11-7 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) struggles. After falling behind 38-24 heading into halftime, the Tigers' only hope was to come out of the break on fire and quickly cut into the Quakers' (10-8, 3-2) advantage.

Instead, the exact opposite happened. Princeton's offense continued to sputter — the Tigers missed their first three shots — while defensive breakdowns gave Penn multiple open looks at the basket. The exclamation point on the run came when Mark Zoller drove into the lane and, after drawing two defenders, dished to Adam Chubb for an emphatic dunk. The bucket put the Quakers up 20, forcing an exasperated Thompson to call timeout with 17:19 to play.

Princeton simply never found its offensive rhythm. After successfully pounding the ball into the post to open the game — junior center Judson Wallace scored seven of the Tigers' first nine points — Princeton suddenly appeared frazzled by Penn's pressure defense, committing turnovers on three straight possessions. The carelessness continued throughout the game. Junior guard Will Venable alone coughed up the ball seven times, and Wallace added four miscues.

"We have been playing sloppy," Wallace said. "Since the Ivy League started, we've been turning the ball over way too much. Teams have been pressuring us, but we've got to be strong with the ball."

Wallace appeared chagrined that Princeton had abandoned its focus on feeding the ball into the post after its early success in doing so. Once the Tigers fell behind, they began launching — and mainly missing — a plethora of long-range shots. As a result, Princeton did not shoot a single free throw in the second half.

"We've got to stick with our offense," Wallace said. "In the second half we just decided we were running too much low — I don't think we can run too much low, I think we should throw it down all the time — but we started shooting threes and missing. When we're not hitting threes, we're vulnerable."

As lost as the Tigers looked on offense at times, their defensive malaise was an even more disheartening development.

"We have a team that has been playing very good defense," Thompson said. "Tonight we didn't."

The Quakers quickly quelled nearly every Princeton run by nailing a long open jumper. While star senior guard Jeff Schiffner was the most frequent culprit with a game-high 22 points, he alone was not responsible for the Tigers' demise. The 9-0 run Penn used midway through the first half to open its first double digit lead was the result of consecutive trifectas from three different players.

Even more damaging was the uncharacteristic offensive outburst from Zoller, who scored 16 points on seven of nine shooting. The freshman forward, whose scoring average is the lowest of any Penn starter, repeatedly hit wide-open midrange jump shots after the Tigers failed to properly rotate and fight through Quaker screens.

"When preparing for this Penn team, you put a lot of emphasis on Schiffner and Bagley," Thompson said. "But Mark did a very good job of taking advantage of opportunities that were presented to him."

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Ultimately, it seemed as if everything that possibly could have gone wrong for the Tigers did so. The dual combination of Murphy's Law and a talented Penn team was simply far too much to handle.