Jerry Carino of MyCentralJersey.com wrote a nice piece on Zack Rosen and how he is dealing with all of the losing at Penn these last two years compared with the tremendous success of his high school teams. Here are some interesting highlights from the article:

1. Rosen's comments: "I've always been on teams that have had a lot of success, and coming here I expected it would be the same thing," Rosen said last week. "That's not the case. It takes a lot more effort, more work, more commitment. It take a lot more of everything and it's been frustrating, but I think we've got a good foundation." ... On how he's stayed motivated on such a bad team: "By not letting it me bring me down, but embracing it and making me stronger for it," he explained. "That's been the key, taking the right attitude and working hard no matter what the circumstances."

2. One of his quotes in the story seems to imply that Darren Smith will be working out this summer and trying to return next season. After missing two full seasons with his knee injury, Smith would be eligible to apply for a fifth year if he proves that he needs the fifth year to do something academically as well. This usually entails something like taking on a second major or anything else that gives the player a legitimate academic reason for needing a fifth year before graduating. It's certainly something that's been discussed here and elsewhere in the circles of Penn basketball discussion, but I think the common opinion was that Smith wouldn't have a good reason to play a 5th year, especially considering the playing time constraints the team will face next year with a huge recruiting class.

3. The article mentions that Rosen has a 3.1 GPA in Wharton. I'm not in Wharton, so I can't judge that, but for someone with so much time tied up in basketball, it doesn't seem too shabby.

I was at the Brown game last night, but didn't go to the postgame press conference. However, Brian Kotloff did and passed along this quote from co-captain Zack Rosen about whether Jerome Allen should be hired full time as head coach:

"Undoubtedly. I don’t know if I’ve hinted at it or tried to hint at it in different ways without saying he’s our guy, but Jerome Allen is the right person for the job and they should hire him as soon as they possibly can. They should be begging him to stay.

"He demands respect. He knows what it takes to win and he’s gonna do everything that it does take. He’s willing to put in the work. He’s special with people. I could write a list on the top of this stat sheet for you and get it to you next game."

And at least one columnist at the DP agrees with that. What do you guys think?

In case you haven't heard, Penn had a pretty big win yesterday. In addition to reading our recap (which links to a full box score), check out our sweet photo slideshow from the game, taken by DP Photo Editor Pete Lodato. (You can also read the Cornell Daily Sun's recap if you so desire).

Upsetting the top team in the Ivy League would have been a pretty big deal regardless of the program. But throw in Cornell's No. 22 rank, and last night’s game is garnering national recognition.

Pat Forde at ESPN.com has a post that discusses three big games yesterday, including the Quakers' upset. He calls Penn's win "certainly the biggest league upset of the year nationwide. Might be the biggest upset, period." That link also has a video interview with Zack Rosen and Jerome Allen. Yahoo Sports also asks if this was the upset of the year.

In addition, here's another ESPN article about the wide-open Ivy race. On that note, Penn (3-2 Ivy) is technically in control of its own Ivy League title destiny, since it will take on both Cornell (6-1) and Harvard (5-2) again and has yet to face off against Princeton (5-0). As a friend of mine joked, if Penn wins the rest of its games this season, it will win the national championship. Of course that isn't going to happen -- nor is it even likely they will sweep the rest of the Ivy slate. But a team that many thought would struggle to win four or five Ivy games, has already won twice on the road and is now undefeated at home after upsetting the No. 22 team in the nation.

After witnessing another Penn loss despite another great effort by sophomore guard Zack Rosen, I was thinking about just how much worse (if that's even possible) this Penn team would be without the red-haired floor general.

In fact, you could make the case that no player in the Ivies is more valuable to his team than Rosen. For example, take away Ryan Wittman and Cornell would still be good. But take away Zack Rosen ... and Penn would still be bad? Well OK obviously it's not like Zack Rosen himself wins games for Penn. However, looking at the top scorers for each Ivy team, Rosen has scored the highest percentage of his team's points (this is similar to baseball's Value Over Replacment Player stat):

Ryan Wittman (Cornell): 18.6/75.9=24.5%
Alex Zampier (Yale): 18.4/68.4=26.9%
Noruwa Agho (Columbia): 17.4/64.3=27.1%
Zack Rosen (Penn): 17.3/62.8=27.5%
Jeremy Lin (Harvard): 17.0/77.2=22.0%
Douglas Davis (Princeton): 13.4/57.9=23.1%
David Rufful (Dartmouth): 8.5/55.4=15.3% (not a typo; Dartmouth doesn't have any scoring more than 8.5 points per game)

So in short Zack Rosen is this year's Alex Barnett. However, unlike last year's senior at Dartmouth, there's very little chance he'd win Ivy League Player of the Year since it's not strictly a Most Valuable Player award. As for POY, I'd say it's 60-40 Wittman or Lin, depending on whether Cornell or Harvard win the Ivy title.

I realize the conclusion that Zack Rosen is critical to Penn isn't groundbreaking at all. But it's interesting to quantify the impact he's had on the team. Feel free to leave your thoughts about Rosen's skills in the comments.

I just got back from men's basketball practice today at Weightmann Gym, where members of the media talked with interim head coach Jerome Allen and captains Zack Rosen and Darren Smith before the actual practice started. Unfortunately I have a project due in 24 hours, but I'll give my initial thoughts from what they said now and hopefully I can get a complete article up later If there are any specific questions you want answered, indicate so in the comments and I'll let you know if they were addressed at practice.

First of all, the mood did not seem somber or down. Players were laughing and joking just like any other day. When we asked Rosen and Smith about the mood of the team as compared to last week, they both said that while nobody is happy about what happened to former head coach Glen Miller, everyone's excited for change and to see what the team can do under Allen.

Read below the jump for more of my thoughts.

(more...)

Those who know me personally know that I place a premium on not sleeping, as I hate to miss anything.

As it turns out, going to bed around 1:30 am at The Line Saturday made me miss something that would have further driven home the point I made in my column today. Reader/Red & Blue Crew member Alexa Luzecky let me know that later in the night, sophomores Zack Rosen and Mike Howlett returned to the Palestra along with teammate Rob Belcore. They hung out for a while, watching Superbad and talking to some fans. Howlett and Belcore eventually left, but Rosen stayed the night, getting up with the participants at 7:45.

If I failed to drive home the point in my column, then this certainly did. Glen Miller and the hoops team went way above and beyond in their displays of appreciation for the fans, and I applaud them personally for truly forming that personal connection to the fans.

The U.S. Maccabiah basketball team is one win away from reclaiming the gold medal. Coach Bruce Pearl's boys defeated Canada in the semi-finals today, 123-76, after jumping out to a 64-40 halftime lead. New Hampshire's Dane Diliegro led the Americans with 20 points and nine rebounds, while Bucknell's Bryan Cohen (brother of former Penn hoopster Aron) added 17 points and three rebounds. Zack Rosen contributed two points, six assists and four rebounds and committed zero turnovers in 20 minutes.

Now the U.S. must play its fourth game in as many days as it gets set to play Israel in the gold medal game tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. EDT). The game will be broadcast on DIRECTV channel 366 (Jewish Life TV) or streamed online at www.jltv.tv.

[Updated July 22, 2:07 p.m.] Team USA won the gold medal today with a 95-86 victory over Israel. The game was a hard-fought, back-and-forth matchup that went to overtime. The U.S. led most of the way, with a three-point halftime lead that ballooned to as many as 13 before going into the fourth quarter at 62-57. With the game on the line, Israel stepped up and took a six-point lead with five minutes remaining. Rosen cut the deficit to two on an acrobatic shot, but committed a turnover on a similar attempt on the next possession. Grunfeld finally tied it for the US on a three-point play with 20.7 seconds left and the game went to overtime. In OT the U.S. took control as Rosen scored three of his six points and added two assists in the extra period, while Grunfeld nailed his free throws down the stretch to ensure the victory. He led the way with 25 points and 12 rebounds for the U.S. and was named tournament MVP.

1) Penn Athletics finally made its official announcement regarding the men's basketball recruits for the Class of 2013. As I mentioned in a post  last week, the official class only includes three of the five incoming freshmen: Carson Sullivan, Brian Fitzpatrick and Sean Mullan. The other two players, Denzel Washington's son Malcolm and Jack Eggleston's brother Tommy, were not listed because they are considered "preferred walk-ons." None of the five newcomers are listed yet on the 2009-10 roster.

2) If you read my story a few weeks ago, you already know that all the freshmen except Mullan have been playing in the Delaware County Pro-Am summer basketball league. The current Penn players' team is Trad Jazz, which has gone 2-6 so far. Their next game is tomorrow against UNUM (6-2), which includes a number of notable former Penn hoopsters like Brian Grandieri, Mark Zoller, Michael Jordan, Geoff Owens and Jeff Schiffner. Trad Jazz will play its last game Sunday as the league's playoffs begin Monday, though the squad is unlikely to make the postseason.

3) Trad Jazz got both of its wins before Zach Rosen left for Israel. Rosen and Team USA got off to a great start at the Maccabiah games with a blowout win over Mexico, 112-13 (that is not a typo; they actually won by 99 points). Rosen put up eight points and four assists. The next game was a revenge match against France, which beat the  US and forced them to settle for Bronze in 2005, and returned most of its players for the 2009 games. The US won 131-77 behind 25 points by Todd Golden and 23 points by Dan Grunfeld (son of Wizards GM Ernie). Rosen's line -- five points, four assists, three rebounds.

The US was finally tested in its third game of group play against Russia. It was a close game that came down to the end, with the score tied at 71 and just seven seconds remaining. Russia missed the last shot, but they managed a tip-in with .5 seconds remaining and held on for the win. With the loss the US had to beat Argentina to advance to the semi-finals, and the rules are such that a 4-or-more point victory would yield them the first seed and a semi-final matchup with Canada while a less-than-4 point victory would have meant the second seed and a semi-final bout with defending champion Israel.

Team USA  beat Argentina 97-89 today behind Grunfeld's 25 points and eight rebounds. Rosen added eight points and four assists. Now the US is set to play Canada tomorrow at 4 p.m. Israeli time (which is 9 a.m. EDT) with a chance to play the winner of Argentina-Israel in the championship.

The Herb Good Basketball Club has given out some Philadelphia hoops awards, and Zack Rosen has won the Dave Zinkoff Award for Big 5 Rookie of the Year.  He did not win the Ivy League equivalent. This is the second-straight year a Quakers hoopster has won the award. Last year Tyler Bernardini won it with 12.9 points, 26.7 minutes, 2.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game. Rosen's stats were arguably better (8.1 points, 31.1 minutes, 3.4 rebounds, and 5.0 assists (which led the Ivy league) per game).  Previously no Penn player ever won it.

Senior Kevin Egee also won the Harry Merrill Sportsmanship Award.

In addition, Villanova coach Jay Wright won Coach of the Year, which shouldn't come as a surprise. The Big 5 Player of the Year announcement should come soon (Dionte Christmas has my vote).

1) Yes I'm linking to my own article, but Harrison Gaines has decided to transfer from Penn.

2) In the de facto Ivy League Championship game, the Dartmouth women's basketball team beat Harvard to clinch the auto-bid to the NCAAs.  The win gave the Big Green its 17th championship overall, second consecutive and fourth in the last five seasons.

3) The Ivy League announced its men's All-Ivy teams, and Penn did not do very well.  Tyler Bernardini managed an honorable mention (his second-straight such honor).  And ... that was it.

Zack Rosen, who many predicted would be Rookie of the Year in the preseason, did not win that award. Instead it went to Cornell guard Chris Wroblewski who played in 30 games (seven starts) and averaged 6.7 points, 2.6 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 25.3 minutes per game. Meanwhile, Rosen started 27 of Penn's 28 games and averaged 8.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists (which led the league) and 31.1 minutes per game.  Then again, Cornell won the league with a 11-3 record, while Penn limped to a 6-8 finish.

But I definitely did agree with the Player of the Year choice, as Dartmouth's Alex Barnett more than deserved that honor. He led the league with 19.4 points per game, and ranked eighth in rebounds with 5.6, as he led the Big Green to a 7-7 Ancient Eight record. That was the team's best finish in four years.\

4) Here's a nice reminiscing of old times at the Palestra and Franklin Field.