Penn remains winless against Wagner, as it suffers an overtime loss, 75-69, at the Palestra. There weren't a lot of bright spots for the Quakers in this edition of the Good, the Bad & the Ugly.
THE GOOD: Bagtas continues to run the show
Though occasionally hindered by some rookie mistakes, freshman guard Tony Bagtas followed up on his commitment to reducing turnovers, logging eight assists compared to three turnovers against the Seahawks. With some fine-tuning, he could be the most efficient passer for Penn this season.
THE BAD: It's under review.
An argument against the use of video review in sports is that it disrupts the flow of the game. This sounds like a preposterous position until one sees a game like this one and realizes the incalculable number of things that can be reviewed. The referees visited the video board so many times that their reviews in the second half and overtime elicited booing from the crowd. Perhaps the most agonizing use of the review was one that took several minutes and only resulted in adjusting the clock from 27.0 to 28.1 seconds remaining.
THE UGLY: Penn loses its cool.
There were so many ugly aspects to this game that it's difficult to catalogue them all. (For instance, neither team shot better than 33.3 percent from the field.) But the most gut-wrenching of all the flaws was the Quakers' squad just looking flat-out undisciplined in this game. Bagtas was called for foolish flagrant foul, Miles Cartwright fouled out for equally frivolous reasons and Tony Hicks is fortunate to not have been tossed from the game after a technical foul followed by an unwarranted hard foul in the waning moments of the contest. Penn logged 23 turnovers and 28 fouls in the game, leading to 39 free throw attempts for Wagner, which the Seahawks converted at an impressive rate of 84.6 percent. Their discipline at the free throw line mirrored their composure down the stretch. Meanwhile, Penn came apart. It was an ugly sight to behold.
