I hope you were all able to catch last night's monumental Penn-Princeton thriller, either in person or on ESPNU. After the jump, I have some more thoughts and interesting notes on a game that will be talked about for quite some time.

1. Zack Rosen came up huge last night. Not only did he do a great job of distributing the ball and setting up teammates for open looks, but when the Quakers had their backs to the wall, he bailed them out time and time again. On a few possessions, with the shot clock winding down and options dwindling, Rosen took matters into his own hands, creating space and nailing jumpers. He obviously had the big three in overtime which was in effect the game's winning field goal. The two consecutive layups he had to put Penn ahead early in the second half were enormous, as well.

Stu Suss, Penn's statistician, pointed out to me a very interesting statistic on Rosen last night during the game. There is a statistic called "Pure Point Rating (PPR)," which is basically a better, adjusted version of assist-turnover ratio. I'm no statistician by any means, so bear with me and my pedestrian analysis ... The main idea behind PPR is that turnovers are more detrimental to a team than assists are valuable. That makes enough sense if you think about it -- if you don't agree, let me know in the comments section. The stat ultimately adjusts for this by weighting turnovers more heavily. So the end formula is: (Assists x 2/3) - Turnovers, and then you divide by minutes played and move the decimal in the result to places to the right to make the number readable. The stat is obviously designed as a better way to evaluate point guards. How accurate is it? The top two players by PPR in the country right now are Pitt's Levance Fields (10.22) and UNC's Ty Lawson (8.25). Zack Rosen? He's 32nd nationally with a rating of 3.51, and 4th nationally among freshmen. Wow. (Statistics are courtesy of www.draftexpress.com -- a great website if you're unfamiliar with it.)

2. Make no mistake about it -- this was an ugly game from start to finish.

Princeton ran a fine-tuned Princeton offense -- think a faster-paced version that swings the ball out for three-point shots more than normal, with fewer backdoor cuts. This was more in the style of the offense that John Thompson III ran when he was at Princeton; clearly his former assistant at Georgetown, current Tigers coach Sidney Johnson, picked up on it. The offense has its benefits -- Princeton found itself open from three-land time and time again.

In the first half, the Tigers were red hot from downtown, as the three-ball helped to ignite their initial comeback and build a double-digit lead. They were cold in the second half, however, and the offense was obviously much less effective. The problem with this less methodical version of the Princeton offense is that, evidently, it is more prone to turnovers. Penn's defense deserves a lot of credit for its great effort -- there were more forced errors than unforced errors, to be sure -- but there were also a few times when the Tigers simply threw the ball away out of bounds.

On the Quakers end, several layups and short-range jumpers that should have been very easy buckets didn't manage to fall, and throughout the night Tyler Bernardini could have built a house with some of the bricks he threw up. There was one mid-range attempt that barely grazed the rim -- the Princeton fans interpreted it as an air-ball and serenaded Tyler with the "air-ball" chant for the rest of the game. There was another deep two-point attempt from a few feet right of the top of the key late in the second half on which he missed the rim completely, shooting the ball directly off left corner of the box on the backboard. Jack Eggleston had a few open looks from three-land that he clanked, and he also missed an easy baseline jumper at one point off a nice set up from Zack Rosen late in the 1st half. Penn had enough open looks to net 80 points last night.

Bernardini also tried to force way too many plays down the stretch. Late in the game, he drove baseline and tried to pass down the baseline to Rosen, who was waiting for a three in the corner, but the pass was intercepted. There were a few instances in which he tried to shoot over double-teams and missed, and a couple of times where he tried to make something happen in the paint and was stuffed. To be perfectly honest, I think that Bernardini -- who played all but three minutes of last night's game -- should have been given a breather at that point; he must have been gassed. Belcore, a good shooter and defender, might have been a better option late in the second half, and Tyler could have still been brought back in for the final two minutes of regulation.

The final ugly play worth mentioning was the last one in regulation, which Glen Miller took the blame for after the game. With the shot clock dead, Rosen dribbled the game clock down and waited for Tyler to come off a screen to start the play. Tyler took the pass and then dribbled straight into traffic at about the foul-line and forced up a low-percentage shot that rimmed out, sending the game to overtime. Miller said after the game that he had called for a play that the Quakers hadn't worked on in quite a while -- that it wasn't the right call for that particular spot. That may be, but Tyler should have realized he didn't have anything when he dribbled into traffic and looked to pass or at least tried to drive the lane and maybe get fouled. He was a very clutch free-throw shooter yesterday. He certainly had time to adjust the play -- not a lot of time, but enough time to pull it back out and pass the ball off quickly for a better look. I can't argue putting the ball in Tyler's hands for the final play no matter how bad he had been shooting -- I admire the faith Miller has in his guy. Fields -- the Pitt PG -- couldn't do anything Monday against UConn until the final moments, when he drilled a three and helped seal the win. But either way, that play demonstrated poor judgment all around in a game that was otherwise -- perhaps with the exception of playing Tyler too many minutes -- very well-managed by Miller.

3. Cam Lewis definitely has his weaknesses around the basket, but he has gotten a lot better inside and become a viable scoring threat. But more importantly, his interior defense has been most valuable. Penn had so much trouble countering teams with a good inside presence earlier in the season, but Cam has really stepped it up lately and given the Quakers a chance against teams with good big men. Granted, Princeton's forwards aren't great, but between last weekend and last night, Cam is getting the job done down low for Penn. If only he could hit free throws ...

4. Finally, though Penn as a team had an off-game offensively, you can't say enough about how this team hustled and fought through adversity all night long. Andrew Scurria did a great job of highlighting this today in his article. For a team that had problems with toughness and physicality a few weeks ago, last night's game was a most impressive turnaround, continuing from this past weekend's successes. Worth noting was that, despite Tyler and Jack's offensive struggles, they were instrumental in pumping up and energizing the team throughout the game. After Conor Turley was ejected, both of them fired up their teammates in the players' huddle. Miller kept his discussions during media timeouts relatively brief -- Penn's players were back on the floor much earlier than Princeton's were. The players were very motivated and very confident last night, and that's a credit to great leadership and great coaching.

As I indicated in my column, this was a huge win for the program. I'm not sure whether the fact that all of Penn's league wins this season have come on the road is a funny coincidence or perhaps a sign of something more significant. The real answer should come this weekend. All I have left to say at this point is this: A lot of you have been enormously critical of this young team throughout the season and in my opinion too hard on Miller. I questioned him on The Buzz before winter break because I didn't think he was getting everything out of his players that he could have. This team has since responded, in large part due to coaching. That doesn't mean Miller deserves a free pass or your automatic respect or accolades; he should always be questioned and evaluated in an appropriate context.

The headline in the DP today read, "Back on track." That may be, or it may not be. This is still a very young team with clear problems on both ends of the court that won't all get resolved overnight, or even this season. That's no one's fault -- it's just part of the learning process for these underclassmen. But, if Miller and his players didn't prove themselves to you with last night's win, then they never will. The win wasn't about skill. It was about grit, determination, coaching, and a stubborn refusal to let the game slip away. And these guys earned it on the road, against a talented arch rival. You don't tend to see that from such a young team. If Penn can win this type of game on the road, then it should certainly be able to do the same at home. But at this point, the players and Miller deserve a little bit more respect and patience from the fans at the Palestra. After last night, they sure as hell should have earned it.

Questions? Thoughts? Ideas? Your comments are always welcome.

Tags: basketball, princeton, tyler bernardini, Zack Rosen

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Ivy League, Men's Basketball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.