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Tigers come up short against Penn, 55-46
Loss dims Princeton's Ivy League title hopes
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Penn
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25
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30
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55
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Princeton
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18
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28
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46
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PRINCETON
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Min
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FG
M-A
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FT
M-A
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Reb
O-T
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A
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F
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PTS
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Baah
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1
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0-0
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0-0
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0-0
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0
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0
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0
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Rocca
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33
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4-16
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8-10
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5-14
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3
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2
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16
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Young
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31
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3-10
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4-4
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1-3
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1
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5
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11
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El-Nokali
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40
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3-7
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0-0
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0-1
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1
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2
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6
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Gloger
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25
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0-3
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0-0
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0-1
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1
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1
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0
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Chapman
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35
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3-9
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0-0
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1-2
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1
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4
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8
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Bechtold
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15
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2-5
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0-0
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1-4
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0
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2
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5
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Walton
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20
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0-2
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0-0
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3-4
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1
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2
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0
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TOTALS
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200
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15-52
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12-14
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11-29
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8
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18
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46
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Percentages: Fg-.288, Ft-.857. 3-Point Goals: 4-17, .235 (Chapman 2-7, Young 1-4, El-Nokali 0-1, Gloger 0-1, Bechtold 1-4). Team Rebounds: 4. Blocked Shots: None. Turnovers: 11 (Rocca 3, El-Nokali 2, Walton 2, Young 2, Bechtold 1, Chapman 1). Steals: 6 (Chapman 3, Walton 2, El-Nokali 1). Technical Fouls: 0. Attendance: 7,385.
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PENN
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Min
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FG
M-A
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FT
M-A
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Reb
O-T
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A
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F
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PTS
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Jordan
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38
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5-9
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4-5
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0-5
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6
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1
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14
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Owens
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22
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2-4
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0-2
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1-5
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0
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3
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4
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Brown
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18
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3-5
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1-2
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1-2
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2
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3
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8
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Archibong
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10
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1-1
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1-2
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0-1
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0
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2
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3
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Langel
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39
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3-6
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2-3
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0-3
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4
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0
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9
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Onyekwe
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37
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5-10
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2-2
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1-6
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0
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4
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12
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Klatzky
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18
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1-3
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0-0
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1-2
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0
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0
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3
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Kapetanovic
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18
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1-4
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0-0
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3-4
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1
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4
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2
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TOTALS
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200
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21-42
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10-16
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7-28
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13
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17
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55
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Percentages: Fg-.500, Ft-.625. 3-Point Goals: 3-9, .333 (Onyekwe 0-1, Brown 1-2, Jordan 0-1, Langel 1-3, Klatsky 1-2). Team Rebounds: 2. Blocked Shots: 8 (Onyekwe 4, Owens 3, Archibong 1). Turnovers: 14 (Jordan 5, Kapetanovic 2, Klatsky 2, Langel 2, Owens 2, Brown 1). Steals: 6 (Archibong 2, Owens 2, Kapetanovic 1, Langel 1). Technical Fouls: 0.
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By Justin Feil
For Packet OnLine
Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2000
No one is saying that the Ivy League men's basketball race is over, but Pennsylvania took a big step toward repeating with a 55-46 win Tuesday night in front of 7,385 fans at sold-out Jadwin Gym.
It was the Quakers' second straight win over Princeton after the Tigers had won the teams' six previous meetings. Now halfway through the Ivy season, Penn, which improved to 14-7 overall and 7-0 in the Ivies, rests in first place, two games ahead of Princeton, which fell to 13-9, 5-2. It looks
bleak for Bill Carmody's bunch.
"Stranger things have happened. I guess we're never out until we're out, but it's very tough to swallow right now," said Princeton center Chris Young, who scored 11 points before fouling out with 36 seconds to play.
"It wouldn't sting as bad if we didn't have the earlier loss to Yale but we did. Right now it doesn't look good," he said. "Give credit to Penn. They played a tough game. They played well defensively and they beat us."
Penn used a suffocating defense that never allowed Princeton to catch up after the Quakers' Michael Jordan was fouled by Young while making a layup at the 9:04 mark. The ensuing free throw gave Penn a 13-12 lead it would never relinquish.
The three-point play by Jordan, who finished with 14 points and a game-high six assists, was part of a 14-0 Quaker run that helped Penn erase a 12-6 Princeton lead. Princeton went into the locker room at halftime trailing, 25-18.
In the second half, Princeton rallied four times to cut the lead to just two points, but could never get the equalizer. All three times it cut it to a single basket it was the result of Mason Rocca's handywork.
Mason Rocca goes up for a hook shot against Penn's Ugonna Onyekwe.
Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski
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The senior co-captain played 33 minutes, at times limping noticeably due to tendonitis on the inside of his left ankle. It didn't stop him from being the game's leading scorer with 16 points — all in the second half — and leading rebounder with 14. He also had three assists.
"It's great," Carmody said of Rocca's performance. "I look at the stats and I see 4-for-16 (shooting), but I didn't see that when I was watching the game. He gave us a chance to hang in there for 34 minutes and then somebody else had to come through for us. I told my guys, 'You expect a guy who
hasn't practiced in 10 weeks to carry you.'"
Two free throws by Rocca with 5:55 to play in the game cut Penn's lead to 40-38, but a 7-0 run over the next three minutes led by Penn fifth-year senior Frank Brown's layup and three-pointer crushed Princeton's
chances. Rocca's two free throws ended the run to make the score 47-40 with
2:51 to play, but the Tigers got no closer.
It was Penn's defense, not its offense, that won the game. The Quakers forced Rocca and Young into a combined 7-for-26 day from the floor and shut out freshman Spencer Gloger.
Penn's backcourt — Jordan, Brown and Langel — outscored Princeton's, 31-14. And Penn's frontcourt of freshman Ugonna
Onyekwe and Geoff Owens made Princeton's front line earn every basket.
"It's a little harder for Chris Young because they're off Mason, so you throw it down to him and they're not guarding Mason down there," Carmody said. "So it's a little harder for him to do things in there. They crowd
around him. If that's the case, we should be able to find guys on the perimeter a little bit and knock down some shots. For the most part they guarded our guys inside one-on-one in there and did well. Not too many teams have been able to do that."
Princeton shot just 29 percent for the game compared to Penn's 50 percent.
"We got off to a good start, and they came right back," Carmody said. "In the second half, I just thought our defense was very, very good. We kept stopping them and stopping them. It just got to that point where they made their run at 40-38.
"I was very disappointed in our offense. The things that they did, we expected, the way they played us. We still weren't able to handle it," he said.
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