Courtesy of NavySports.com
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – The Navy men’s basketball team (1-2) suffered a 66-45 defeat at Penn (1-2) on Wednesday night in the Palestra. The Quakers jumped out to an early lead and took advantage of a poor shooting performance by the visiting Mids.
Penn outshot Navy 45.8 percent (27-of-59) to 28.1 percent (16-of-57) from the floor in the contest. Navy shot just 11.1 percent (2-of-18) on 3-pointers and also committed 17 turnovers.
“Credit Penn tonight,” said Navy head coach Ed DeChellis. “They played very, very well, and we played very, very poorly. They did everything well, and we really didn’t do anything well at all. It was very frustrating. We played very rushed offensively. We didn’t have any patience for what we were trying to do.”
Penn raced out to a 17-2 lead just seven minutes into the game and never looked back. Senior guard Shawn Anderson made the lone Navy basket through the team’s first 11 shot attempts over 13 possessions.
Penn’s leading scorer this season, sophomore guard Ryan Betley, keyed a first half-ending 12-4 run with a 3-pointer and an and-1 to give the hosts a 43-16 edge at halftime.
Navy outscored Penn in the second half, 29-23, and the Mids were greatly boosted by their reserves outscoring Penn’s reserves, 20-7, over the final nine minutes of the game.
Penn scored 17 points off of Navy’s 17 turnovers and the Quakers outrebounded the Mids, 39-35.
Betley and Caleb Wood each scored 13 points for Penn, who used 16 players in the game. Wood knocked down three of Penn’s seven 3-pointers. Darnell Foreman was Penn’s third-leading scorer in the game with nine points.
Navy junior point guard Hasan Abdullah scored a team-high eight points and also had three rebounds and three steals.
Junior forward Mo Lewis scored a career-best seven points with four rebounds, while freshman forward Tyler Riemersma collected a team-high seven rebounds with two points, two assists and one steal.
Navy used a season-high 17 players in the game. Freshmen Alec Loehr, Luke Loehr and Ryan Reagan made their career debuts against Penn.
Navy and Penn were playing for the 85th time in series history and for the fourth consecutive season. Penn’s win snapped Navy’s two-game winning streak in the series.
Navy’s game at Penn was the team’s third game in a third different state in the season’s first six days. Navy will make it four games in four different states in the season’s first nine days when playing at Bryant in Smithfield, R.I. on Saturday at 4:00 PM.
Leave a Reply