Penn 71, UNC 86
Our overall performance was not spectacular, but we got our first glimpse at the potential of our new freshmen. Ed Davis and Tyler Zeller both had good games. Zeller started in place of the injured Tyler Hansbrough and scored UNC's first points of the game on a shot from about 17 feet out on his way to scoring a team-high 18. Our shooting early in the game and late in the 2nd half was not very good. We missed 4 out of the first 5 three points. Wayne Ellington went 5-15 from the field.
Our defense wasn't a whole lot better. At times Penn beat us up the court for easy shots and got several wide open 3 point attempts, which helped keep the game close. Let's just hope this is new season jitters/bugs that will be worked out over the next couple of weeks. Of course not having Tyler Hansbrough and Marcus Ginyard (the team's top 2 defenders) had something to do with it.
On the bright side, Bobby Frasor got some quality playing time despite injuring his ankle earlier in the week. I mentioned Ed Davis earlier, he finished with a double double for his first game in Carolina blue! He had a reputation as a rebounding machine and he didn't disappoint by grabbing 10 rebounds.
I felt we settled for outside shots much too often throughout the game. Deon Thompson had a good game scoring 17 despite the limited touches down low.
We finally got our act together toward the end of the 1st half and the game would have been an easy blowout if it wasn't for a field goal dry spell in the second half. We went over 4 minutes without a field goal and Penn ate away at the lead. But it was too little too late as we just had too much fire power.
I do need to give props to Penn's
Tyler Bernardini (reigning Ivy League Freshman of the Year) who scored 26 against us
just like last year! You think we would have learned the first time around.
