Penn’s TJ Power misses practice, is questionable for game vs. Illinois

GREENVILLE, SC — At the far finish of the court docket, as his teammates stretched on the alternative baseline, a lone determine in a maroon sweatsuit squared up and rose right into a bounce shot so pure it would’ve come from a lab. Watching from a cautious distance was a silver-haired head coach who has seen sufficient basketball to know that the ol’ next-man-up-mentality has limits, particularly for a 24½-point underdog.

An hour earlier, Penn coach Fran McCaffery had sounded a observe of cautious optimism — or optimistic warning — relating to star wing TJ Power’s standing for the Quakers’ NCAA Tournament opener towards third-seeded Illinois on Thursday (9:25 p.m., TNT). Power, a easy 6-foot-9 scorer whose 44 points in the Ivy League championship lifted Penn to his first March Madness look in almost a decade, he has been battling an sickness that sidelined him from apply on Wednesday.

“If you were asking me do I think he’s going to play, I’d say yes, but he didn’t practice today,” McCaffery stated. “He didn’t feel up to it.”

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The uncertainty surrounding Power comes at an particularly unhealthy time for Penn. The 14th-seeded Quakers have been already missing leading scorer Ethan Robertswho suffered a concussion within the Ivy League match and has been dominated out for Thursday’s game. He and Power have mixed to account for almost 34 of Penn’s 76.1 factors per game this season. The solely different participant in double figures is senior ahead Michael Zanoni at 11.6 factors per game.

Power’s look throughout a late-afternoon shoot round Wednesday on the Bon Secours Wellness Arena was a optimistic signal. The 22-year-old junior has the form of game that doesn’t exist as extra stock within the stockroom at a program like Penn’s. A five-star highschool senior who ranked among the many prime 25 gamers in his nationwide class, Power spent his freshman season at Duke earlier than transferring to Virginia as a sophomore. He ended up at Penn thanks partially to a preexisting relationship with McCafferywho had recruited him to play at Iowa as he was constructing the Hawkeyes right into a nationwide power. Power is averaging 16.8 factors and seven.9 rebounds whereas capturing 43.3% from three-point vary for the Quakers this season. His mixture of dimension and capturing potential is the form of factor that game plans are constructed round on each benches.

Illinois coach Brad Underwood had excessive reward for Power’s 44-point efficiency in Penn’s 88-84 extra time win over Yale within the Ivy League championship, calling it “one of the best performances I’ve seen all year.”

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“I always tell our players I had the best game of my high school career with 102-degree fever,” Underwood stated. “When somebody gets sick, it scares me to death. I hope he’s not in a position to have the greatest of his career coming off a 44-point game.”

Whatever the Quakers get from Power, they are going to be hard-pressed to observe within the footsteps of Princeton and Yale as the newest Ivy workforce to advance to the Round of 32. Underwood’s Illini are one of many hottest Final Four picks amongst faculty basketball punditry’s smarter-than-you set. After a 24-8 season during which half their losses got here in extra time — together with an opening-round defeat to Wisconsin within the Big Ten match — Illinois enters the NCAA Tournament with the nation’s seventh-best Pomeroy Ratingand the second-best offensive score. Giving 24½ factors, Illinois is by far the heaviest favourite amongst No. 3 seeds on this 12 months’s subject.

Besides Power, the largest motive to imagine within the Quakers is McCaffery, who coached March Madness Cinderellas at UNC-Greensboro and Siena earlier than his 15 seasons at Iowa. His message to his gamers this week has been equal elements hard-ass coach and softened-up sage: It’s a enterprise journey, however one that you simply may by no means get once more, so ensure you get pleasure from it.

“I think that’s kind of every hooper’s dream is to go play in front of 500-some-thousand people that watch the Ivy League championship and the millions that are going to watch this game,” stated sophomore AJ Levine, a precocious guard who will generate some clip-worthy response footage. “I think it’s just exciting. It makes you want to play harder. It makes you want to show what you can do and your ability and showcase that to the whole world. Really it’s just a dream come true, and it’s making me want to play harder than I already do.”

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Among the game’s most intriguing subplots is the connection between McCaffery and Underwood, who developed a detailed bond throughout their time collectively within the Big Ten.

“When you face a Fran McCaffery team, you’re going to get a team that’s electric offensively,” Underwood stated. “I think he’s one of the best offensive coaches in all of college basketball.”

McCaffery is fast to shrug off such reward, pointing as a substitute to his gamers. Humility is not completely empty. Right now, all of the teaching acumen on this planet doesn’t suggest as a lot as Power’s well being.