Jan 5, 2002

The Penn men's basketball team slapped host-Lehigh with a 74-58 loss to open the year 2002 for both teams on Jan. 5 at Stabler Arena. The Quakers improved to 8-3 on the season behind junior Koko Archibong's game-high 23 points, while Lehigh fell to 3-10.

The first half did not begin with a bang, as both teams were playing very physical basketball and were not scoring a lot of points. Archibong began the scoring with a three, but that was after Onyekwe recorded the game's first foul on the first shot of the contest. Onyekwe then picked up his second foul at 14:55 and was used sparingly after that. It was definitely the Archibong-Tim Begley show in the first half as the rookie picked up 14 points and was perfect from the field with four treys and a field goal, while the elder statesman had a game-high 15, including two three-pointers. Penn really didn't break the game open until Begley made a layup at 4:47 to extend Penn's lead to double-digits for the first time with 11 (30-19). After a three-pointer by Lehigh's Alex Jensen, the Quakers went on an 11-0 run that spanned four minutes and ended with a Jeff Schiffner three (41-22), which were his first points of the game. Jensen again hit for three to cut Penn's halftime lead to 16, 41-25.

Archibong came out of the gate fast in the second half and scored four points for the visitors. Penn pushed the lead to 21 after Archibong stole the ball and fed sophomore Adam Chubb in the lane to give the Quakers a 52-31 cushion with 14:37 left in the game. But the Quakers could not keep their hands to themselves and picked up eight team fouls in the first six minutes of the second half. Luckily, the Mountain Hawks did not capitalize on the free throw line, as Lehigh hit just 6-for-12 from the charity stripe in the second stanza. Ugonna Onyekwe, Chubb and Archibong all played with four fouls in the final 10 minutes of the game, but did a decent job keeping Lehigh in check. Penn also got the job done from the free throw line, hitting all eight of its shots in the last eight minutes. Onyekwe finished the scoring for the game for both teams when he went 2-for-2 from the stripe with 1:53 left, as neither team found the basket for the rest of the contest and Penn drove away from Bethlehem with a 74-58 victory.

For the first time all season, the Quakers outrebounded their opponent, 30-28. Three players had double-scoring figures for Penn with Archibong's 23, Begley's 14 and Onyekwe's 12. Penn shot a season-high 53 percent from the field and shot 50 percent from three-point land (9-for-18), while holding Lehigh to 40 percent shooting on the night.

The Quakers will return to The Palestra to host Florida International on Monday, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m. FIU comes into the game with a 7-9 record after defeating Middle Tennessee, 67-60, on Jan. 5.