TJ Power is staying patient amid the hype as he gets into rhythm at Penn

WASHINGTON — Though the Penn men’s basketball team scored a program-record 119 points in its season opener against Rowan on Friday, the player who got the most attention scored just six.

TJ Power’s second game in a Quakers uniform, Sunday at American, started even more inauspiciously. He was short with a contested jumper in the paint on the opening possession, and airballed a free throw just with under three minutes gone.

But by the end of the afternoon, Power had started to show what all the hype is about. He had 10 points, seven assists, two steals, and a sharp block in Penn’s 84-78 loss to American.

“It felt better, I guess — I mean, it’s a tough loss,” Power said. ”Just trying to do everything I can on the floor. Sometimes, you’re not scoring the ball as much as you want, [so] you’ve just got to do the little things and try to get your team back in the game with other stuff.”

More than anything, the 6-foot-9 junior forward from Shrewsbury, Mass., looked like a player who is still getting into rhythm after missing a month of the preseason with an elbow injury.

“It’s probably more of a conditioning thing than anything,” Power said. “My elbow’s feeling better, so I think it’s good I’m getting these reps in the game. I do think it’s going to get better and better every game. And there’s stuff from each game that I can take and I can build on, even in the loss, so I’m just going to do that.”

Coach Fran McCaffery concurred.

“I think clearly it’s coming — I think we could see it,” he said. “The other night, it was a slow start for him, he was a little short. Today, he was way more aggressive, he was letting it go. Really affected the game.”

Getting up to speed wasn’t why Power played only 25 minutes Sunday. Foul trouble in each half was. He was called for his second with 8 minutes, 57 seconds to go in the first period and sat the rest of the way; then was called for his fourth at the same mark of the second (yes, really) and sat until 2:58 remained.

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“It’s a shame — he was really playing well when he got that fourth foul,” McCaffery said. “It would have been interesting to see if he could have finished out the half, what he would have been able to do.”

Though the home crowd was there to see the Eagles raise a banner for last season’s Patriot League title, some veterans of the D.C. area’s vibrant hoops scene didn’t just show up for that.

Collingswood native Gary Williams, who coached American years before reaching stardom at Maryland, was in attendance two days after being inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

His successor with the Terrapins, Mark Turgeon, also sat courtside, having coached against McCaffery’s Iowa after Maryland moved to the Big Ten. (Turgeon was also a 76ers assistant in the 1997-98 season, Larry Brown’s first in charge.)

They and others in the building knew of Power’s history at Duke and Virginia, and of the significance of his transfer to Penn.

“I don’t really think about it too much, to be honest,” Power said. “I think there’s a lot of outside expectations and stuff like that, and I’ve dealt with that for three years now, and it’s not always the healthiest thing for me to look at.”

He prefers, he said, “to stay focused on my teammates, our game plan and each game, and trying to not let the spotlight stuff get to my head. Because I think that can be toxic for a player.”

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Overall, Power said, the adjustment to playing at Penn has gone well.

“It’s been an easy transition,” he said. “Fran comes from a big-time program, and he’s running this the same way. He’s given me a lot of freedom to be a leader, and I’ve felt like I’ve stepped into that role. … I thought we did battle really well for a road game, so there’s positives to that; and I think we do have a tight group, so that’s going to stick us together on these road trips.”

If adjusting off the court becomes a different matter, those road trips might be part of why. After two years of the privileges that life in the Atlantic Coast Conference affords, Power had to prepare for a bus trip to Providence, R.I., where Penn faces the Friars on Tuesday (7 p.m., ESPN+).

“It’ll be interesting to see how we bounce back from this game — a quick turnaround, too, a long bus ride,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that early on in the year, we’ll learn about ourselves with that Providence game. But I think we’ll be ready. We’ll be ready to play.”

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After that, Power will get his first taste of the Big 5 when Penn plays St. Joseph’s and Drexel. The City Series rivalries might not be as famous as Duke vs. North Carolina, but they’re just as historic in the sport, and he’s excited to see them firsthand.

“As soon as I got here, you can see it on the walls in the Palestra, all the history,” he said. “Sometimes when I can, I just walk around the ring up top and just kind of read everything. I didn’t realize how much of a basketball city Philadelphia really is, so it’s cool, and I’m excited to just be a part of those Big 5 games.”