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Monday, January 7, 2002
Penn big man Onyekwe dominates
in 75-49 victory
 gonna
Onyekwe scored a game-high 25 points and with four blocked
shots helped the University of Pennsylvania to an easy 75-49
victory Monday night in Philadelphia.
The Quakers, off to their finest start since the 1974-75 season,
raised their season record to 9-3.
FIU got 11 points from Carlos
Morban and 10 points and seven rebounds from Rodrigo
Viegas in falling to 7-10.
With Penn up 7-6 with 15:52 left in the first half, the Quakers
went on a 26-5 run over the next nine minutes to take control
of the contest. Penn led at the half, 41-23, thanks in large
part to 53.8 percent first-half shooting (14 of 26) from the
floor and 6 of 12 from beyond the three-point arc.
Onyekwe took advantage of the fact that FIU starting center
Nik
Novakovic fell victim to two quick fouls and lasted only
four minutes. The 6-feet-8 Onyekwe led all scorers at the break
with 16 points, which included a pair of 3-pointers and two blocks
in 17 minutes.
"[Onyekwe] is just a player," said FIU head coach
Donnie
Marsh. "We just didn't have a match for him coming
in. We tried a couple of schemes to slow him down, then he steps
out and hits a 3-pointer and that threw the schemes out the window."
Penn continued their torrid shooting in the second half, leading
by as many as 28 points, 73-45, on an Adam Chubb basket
with 2:47 to play.
The Quakers ended the game with a shooting percentage of .491,
converted nine 3-pointers and connected on 14 of 15 free throw
attempts, missing their first shot from the charity stripe, after
14 straight conversions, with 1:52 to play in the game.
"We played a very good basketball team tonight,"
said Marsh. "This is a very talented team and proved to
be the better team tonight from the beginning. They brought it
to us, made their shots and we could never catch up."
The Golden Panthers return to their conference schedule with
a pair of road games, this coming Thursday in Denton, Tex. against
North Texas, then at the University of Denver Sunday. |