La Salle guards key victory over Penn

LA SALLE scored on its first possession and never trailed. Penn was always running up hill, but never stopped running.

Forget everything you thought you knew about La Salle; evaluate this team on its merits and ignore the recent history. Penn's record may not show it, but this team is far better equipped to deal with the Ivy than its recent predecessors.

The final score, La Salle 68-57, won't really explain the game last night at the Palestra. You had to be there. And, if you were, you saw La Salle's four terrific guards outplay Penn's three terrific guards, but not really by as much as some of the shooting numbers would indicate. This is a game you simply can't judge by statistics. Those are cold, the play was warm, the defense quite serious.

La Salle (13-4, 1-1 Big 5) got a wonderful effort from sophomore point guard Tyreek Duren (21 points, 6 assists, 4 steals, maximum efficiency).

"Tonight, I thought Duren just dominated the game,'' Penn coach Jerome Allen said.

If you saw the box score, you might wonder how Penn's Zack Rosen played. He shot just 3-for-13. Many of the misses came late when he was trying to help his team climb that hill.

Chased by the relentless Ramon Galloway all game, Rosen had nine assists. It could have been 19. He made one great pass after another. Sometimes, his teammates converted. Sometimes, they did not.

"When you've got [just] one guy that can make plays for himself or for other people, it's tough to win at this level,'' Allen said. "We need more guys [to make] plays outside of Zack. It's not happening . . . Our inability to make them pay on offense kind of hurts the morale of the defense.''

One play explains Rosen better than any stat. In the first half, he dove for a loose ball in the lane and covered it while calling timeout. After the timeout, he hit a three.

Galloway, having a great season, shot just 3-for-9 and scored six points. Much of that had to be due to tired legs because Rosen never stops moving.

La Salle's identity this season is defense. This was no different as Penn (7-9, 0-3 Big 5) shot just 33.9 percent. And La Salle gets from defense to offense in a hurry. The Explorers had 15 fastbreak points to 0 for Penn.

"The chemistry we got going on, it's really like one big family,'' Duren said.

Earl Pettis had 18 points for La Salle while Sam Mills had 12. Penn sophomore big man Fran Dougherty (career-best 14 points) was the recipient of several of those great Rosen passes, as was Tyler Bernardini (12 points).

After this game, the Ivy, which starts for Penn Friday at Columbia, is going to seem like a vacation. Penn will not face ball pressure like this again.

"They played a killer schedule,'' La Salle coach John Giannini said.

Allen knows it is about the 14 Ivy games - and one final Big 5 game against Saint Joseph's.

He told his team that "we still have an opportunity to play for all that we've worked for since September.''

Duke, UCLA, Pittsburgh, Temple and La Salle are not in the Ivy. Penn has definitely been tested.

Every time Penn got close, La Salle made a basket or got to the foul line. It was 9-0 after 5 minutes. It was 28-25 with 3 minutes left in the first half. La Salle led 60-47 with 6 1/2 minutes left. With just under 2 minutes left, it was 60-55. Rosen's long three was just off. Dougherty tipped in the miss, but referee Earl Walton called him for going over the back, sending Pettis to the line. And that was that.

"I think one of the reasons we get out to good leads consistently is I think people are surprised by our foot speed and our length,'' Giannini said. "And it's a hard thing to simulate in practice.''

La Salle has won 11 of 12, the best run since the great 1989-90 team won 22 straight. The Explorers want to make the extra pass. And they guard for 40 minutes.

"I think they did addition by subtraction,'' Allen said. "Not having Aaric Murray, obviously, a lot of people thought that they would take a hit.''

Instead, they are giving the hits. It's now Atlantic 10 the rest of the way for La Salle. The Explorers' record is hardly a fluke. They are good.

"I think this is where we deserve to be,'' Duren said. "They had us picked 13th [in the A-10]. That was all because of what we did last year and who we lost.''

Now, it is about who they have.

Penn is better too. How much better everybody starts finding out 2 days from now in New York.