Freshman guard Remy Cofield was still wearing a protective boot on his injured foot as he left campus today, but leave campus he did, with the rest of the team. That’s not to say Cofield will be available against Dartmouth or Harvard, but he could well be if he got good news from the medical staff. Coach Glen Miller had said on Wednesday that he would know more today. One thing’s for sure — if the injury were season-ending, he wouldn’t have made the trip. At least we know that much.

I planned on taking it easy on my live blog of the Hawks-Explorers game, maybe updating five times per half, but that plan went downhill fast. It was, legitimately, the most entertaining game I’ve seen all year, although all ESPN seems to show is the Big East, so that doesn’t say too much. You can look at the box score, but here are a few things you might not have noticed.

I will never stop liking St. Joe’s fans, but two of their roll-outs, while funny, were completely incorrect.

• “Keep Exploring the bottom of the A-10.” - the Explorers may have played the easiest imaginable non-conference schedule (two of their wins came against 1-9 St. Bonaventure and one versus 3-8 George Washington), but still they are 5-5 in the Atlantic 10. An even record in the nation’s 8th-best conference according to the RPI. So while that sign is great, the Explorers are proving it wrong.
• “St. Joe’s salutes La Salle fans (both of them).” Again, these two signs are funnier than the Red and Blue Crew’s entire season besides the Drexel game. But the La Salle fans were loud, and down the stretch louder than the St. Joe’s contingent. True, there weren’t a whole lot, but they were just as plentiful as the Villanova fans in the Holy War, and 10-times as ruckus.

Now, here’s my top 5 plays of the game. As Chris Rock used to say as “Nat X” on Saturday Night Live would say, why only five? Because the Inquirer could get a top 10, but I work for a college newspaper and the man would let me get half of that. Okay, really I only have five good ones. (And I refuse to pull a SportsCenter and make “La Salle three-point shooting” one of the top plays.)

First, a couple honorable mention:
- St. Joe’s Ahmad Nivins throwing Jerrell Williams to the ground to make way for a wide open dunk on his team’s first possession. Oh how that was not indicative at all of what happened the rest of the way…
- La Salle’s Rodney Green blocking 6-foot-10 Pat Calathes from behind and going the other way. He got fouled, but didn’t make the layup, costing him a spot.

5. A Hawks fan in the Qdoba shootout won free burritos for a month, doing basically nothing. I what I believe was 35 seconds, he hit a layup, an elbow shot, an elbow shot from the other side and another layup. That’s pretty hard to screw up. In the Penn equivalent you must hit a layup, free throw, three-pointer and a half-court shot for the same prize. Even without the half-court shot the Penn contest is much harder.

4. On a drive in the first half, Calathes took it down the heart of the lane, and while getting his jersey pulled (by I believe Paul Johnson) he threw down a nasty dunk over the La Salle junior. After the play he slapped the ball into the crowd and received a harsh warning from an official (though he didn’t receive a technical).

3. With his team up by one with under 30 seconds to go, Kimmani Barrett got the ball in the post, was double-teamed, but somehow flipped the ball over the big men for the eventual game-winning basket.

2. Eight-minutes in, Williams went up for a monster dunk, taking off from outside of the lane on the right side, and Nivins absolutely rejected him. The 6-9 big man got his entire palm on the ball just before the height of its path, and threw it down. Needless to say, the Hawks fans went berserk.

1. With just over a minute to go and the game tied at 86, Yves Mekongo Mbala missed only his second shot of the night, but Green, a 6-5 guard came flying down the lane for a thunderous dunk to take a two-point lead. It was probably the loudest a La Salle crowd got since Donnie Carr. No Fran Dunphy. No Bill Raftery.

I don’t have much to say today about Penn basketball, but that Remy Cofield still isn’t practicing with his foot injury. Glen Miller wouldn’t say what it was, how long he’s out for, or whether or not he’ll play against Harvard and Dartmouth. He’s “day-to-day.” If the injury isn’t “out for the year”, chances are it’s “day-to-day.”

Getting through the seven-hour bus trip to Dartmouth can be rough, and Brian Grandieri will spend his time watching Lost. That show could even make the Hanover, N.H., trip seem quick. It’d take a bus ride to Japan and back to watch all the episodes of that show.

• Tonight’s game marked the first time in Brian Grandieri’s career that Penn lost an Ivy League contest at the Palestra.

• As a team, the Quakers shot 9-17 from downtown, hitting three more triples than the Bears. The difference was the play inside. Despite Brown’s smaller size, the Bears etched out 30 points in the paint (compared to Penn’s 24) thanks to a number of smooth backdoor cuts. More importantly, the Bears got to the free throw line 26 times — Penn was 2 of 6 from the charity stripe. Brown’s 61.5% clip wasn’t impressive, but it was good enough.

• Grandieri overcame his recent shooting woes tonight, going 9-15 from the field and 2-4 from beyond the arc. He was the Quakers’ only reliable option in the second half — especially with Kevin Egee on the bench in foul trouble — and hit a number of clutch shots down the stretch.

• Cameron Lewis did not see any action tonight, and though Remy Cofield did see 12 minutes, he left the Palestra wearing a Tom Brady-like protective boot.

Tomorrow’s game against Yale has been moved up to 6 pm. If you can’t make it to the Palestra, ESPN Classic will be televising the game. Stay tuned to The Buzz for more coverage.

P.S. Jack Eggleston was a guest earlier this week on UTV’s DP Roundtable and was asked about the incident with Noah Savage at the end of the Princeton game. With Princeton inbounding the ball under its own basket down by 3 with 9 seconds to go, Savage took a swing towards Eggleston’s groin area and was called for a technical foul, essentially ending the Tigers’ chances. On an earlier possession, Savage missed an important shot that would have put his team in better position to win. On the show, Eggleston said that right before Savage picked up the “T,” Eggleston — who played with Savage a lot over the summer — said something to him about the missed shot, prompting the hot-headed reaction. Zidane, anyone?

Harvard once again one-upped the rest of the Ivy League — just like it did on early decision — by revamping and expanding its financial aid program. (Yale did its best to play catchup.) At some point, will Harvard’s advantages in this department (a roughly $36 billion endowment) give it an edge over the rest of the conference when it comes to convincing recruits to leave scholarships on the table? Or will it force everyone to up their commitment and thereby help the League? I lean toward the latter. Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

A few more thoughts from the Monmouth game: Overall, it was probably the best basketball the Quakers have played outside of the first half against North Carolina. There were downers; they still struggled to get the ball into the post without turning it over, and point guard play was erratic. But they hit 50% from the floor and didn’t turn the ball over nearly as much in the second half, which should be encouraging.

My one prediction for winter break is that we’ll see a few more players grab time in the frontcourt, like freshman Conor Turley did. Glen Miller said after the game that Penn had to adjust and spread the floor in the second half, because in one-on-one situations down low Monmouth was getting the better of every play. The main culprits there were Jack Eggleston and Justin Reilly.

He also said he was pleased that his team didn’t seem to be as reliant on the three-pointer as it was earlier this year, and he suggested that he would like to see the Quakers take fewer threes in the future, too.

The biggest question mark of the night was Harrison Gaines’ lack of minutes, and I don’t really have an explanation there.

Kevin Egee wasn’t with the team at Monmouth, and seperately, I spotted Remy Cofield on crutches outside Franklin Field today, so there’s two more items to keep an eye on in the coming days.

Monmouth-Penn also gets the award for ’smallest media contingent ever’ — two DP reporters, myself included, and one from the Ashbury Park Press in the Hawks’ weight room. Aaawkward.

What a rough game to watch, as Penn loses its third game in as many tries. After the overtime loss to Drexel, you had to be pretty confident in the Quakers’ chances of not seeing to drastic dropoff from last season as well as being the favorite in the Ivy League. But two games later, this squad is reeling.

What was most troubling was the defensive effort from Penn.

For a team that allows 29 points per game and 48 percent shooting from the three point line, I can’t imagine how a 1-3-1 defense was the best option defensively.

The Red and Blue played that set - with the point guard up top, big man in the middle with someone on either side of him and an athletic guard or swingman patrolling the back line - almost the whole game. And as a result, the defense allowed Howard to shoot 22 threes, making 12 of them. Many of these came from the corner, the area of the court that is traditionally most succeptible to threes in the 1-3-1 scheme.

Still, some execution would have prevented the onslaught that ensued. The Bison put up 80 points on Penn after averaging 56 in their first two losses to Duquesne (129-59) and Virginia (92-53).

Howard shot 57 percent not only by hitting wide open threes, but also beating Penn defenders off of the dribble. Quakers forwards seemed a step to slow against the small Bison side, and they conversely couldn’t use their size to their advantage. Penn inside was not particularly strong or intimidating, and recorded no blocks (after altering nine shots in the first two games).

And yet what was even more disturbing was the lack of communication.

Howard players were left wide open, and not just for three, but often under the basket. Whenever players screened, or crossed each other, Penn defenders struggled to cope, for example two defenders heading to the same offensive player on an off-the-ball screen.

This miscommuncation manifested itself on the offensive side as well. The Quakers had 14 turnovers from eight different guys - Grandieri was the only player who played over five minutes that didn’t give one away (Howard had four such players). Many of these were not so much bad passes, but bad decisions - throwing a pass into heavy traffic or to a place that a cutter wasn’t heading.

Key stats:

Read Monday’s paper to hear captain Brian Grandieri’s strong words following the surprising loss.