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PHILADELPHIA, Pa.. -- Senior guard Zack Rosen scored 25 points and was lights out over the game's final four minutes to lead Penn to a 73-66 victory over Cornell on Friday evening at The Palestra. The Quakers improved to 14-11 (6-2 Ivy), while the Big Red slipped to 10-13 (5-4 Ivy).
Rosen scored or assisted on 23 consecutive points for the Quakers before Miles Cartwright hit two free throws with 11 seconds to play to ice the win. Rosen hit two NBA-range 3-pointers in the final four minutes and assisted on a trey by Cartwright his fifth of the game on six tries, that gave the home team a 69-64 lead with less than 30 seconds to play.
Rosen added six assists, five rebounds and three steals to his game-high 25 points. Cartwright was right behind with 22 points, making 7-of-10 field goals overall. Tyler Bernardini chipped in nine points off the bench. Penn shot 50 percent from the floor as a team and made 12-of-22 from 3-point range (55 percent) against the Ivy League's stingiest defense in running teams off the line.
Drew Ferry snapped a shooting slump with 17 points and added six rebounds for the Big Red, while
Johnathan Gray had 15 points five rebounds and four assists.
Chris Wroblewski was the team's third double figure scorer with 14 points. He also had three rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals. Cornell made 8-of-18 from beyond the arc and outrebounded the Quakers 29-25.
Rosen's final four minutes helped Penn overcome a four-point deficit after some fancy passing on the break led to a
Shonn Miller dunk with 4:33 to play to force a Quaker timeout. The Big Red's 59-55 lead wouldn't last long, as Rosen pulled up from 30 feet and drained a 3-pointer to get back within one. Then, Rosen collected a steal and was fouled. He hit both shots to put Penn back in the lead with three and a half minutes to play.
On the ensuing possession, the Big Red took its final lead of the contest when Wroblewski hit a 3-pointer after Rosen slipped, leaving his senior counterpart wide open on the left wing. Rosen was undaunted, hitting an even deeper trey to put Penn up 63-62 with under three minutes remaining.
Another Rosen steal and a third trey by the Quaker guard pushed the lead to 66-62 with 1:13 remaining. Wroblewski drew contact on a drive and hit both free throws to cut the four-point deficit in half. That put Rosen in a position to be a creator, finding Cartwright in the right corner for an open 3-pointer while exhausting all of the shot clock, giving Penn a 69-64 edge with under 30 seconds to play. Wroblewski missed a trey of his own from the top of the key and Penn rebounded, then knocked in four free throws late. When it was all said and done, Rosen tallied 13 points, two steals and an assist in the final four minutes.
Turnovers were the story of the first half, as the Big Red gave the ball up 10 times in the first 20 minutes. Ferry scored 11 points, but Penn's Catwright outdid him with 14 points of his own. Gray added eight points and four rebounds for the Big Red, which shot just 42 percent from the floor as a team. Penn hit on 50 percent of its shots despite missing several layups.
Cornell led by as many as six points in the second half on an offensive rebound and putback by
Eitan Chemerinski, who ended the night with seven points. He also scored on a conventional three-point play moments earlier. The game featured 10 ties and 11 lead changes, most coming during the middle 10 minutes of the second half. The Big Red looked as though it had claimed momentum during a 23 second span that featued a pair of Chemerinski free throws, followed by a defensive stop and fastbreak dunk for Miller. Unfortunately for the visitors, that just set up Rosen's heroics.
The Big Red returns to action tomorrow at 6 p.m. when it faces Princeton at Jadwin Gymnasium.