Game of the Week
Penn (11-7, 2-0 Ivy) at Yale (7-10, 3-1 Ivy) – Saturday, February 3, 6:00 pm ET
Both teams have some work to do on Friday night — Yale against Princeton, Penn at Brown — to set up this early-season showdown for first place. Penn has struggled over the years at Lee Amphitheater, losing three of the last five meetings in New Haven. Even the two wins were nailbiters, coming by a combined seven points. This year, the Quakers are coached by Glen Miller, who seems to have a pretty good idea what he’s doing against James Jones, owning a 10-4 career record in head-to-head games against the Bulldog coach. If Yale can find a way to knock off Penn and sweep the home weekend, we could be in for a good race in the league after all. However, if the Quakers sweep two road games in hostile environments, they will be 4-0 with their two toughest Ivy weekends already behind them.

Line of the Week

1.26.2006 vs. Yale TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT TP A TO BLK S MIN Cusworth, Brian………… 12-18 0-2 4-6 4 6 10 28 0 3 0 1 36
Impressing – Cornell’s maturation. Led by a pair of freshmen, the Big Red is off to strong start in the league at 3-1 after four games against first-division contenders. Most impressively, Steve Donahue’s team now is coming from behind late in games and doing to other teams what opponents did to Cornell during its early-season rough patch outside the league. – Cusworth goes out with a bang. Brian Cusworth played with excellent intensity down the stretch of his college career, averaging 23.0 points and 12.0 rebounds over his final four contests. His senior season turned out to be his best by far, with the big man setting career highs in scoring (17.4), rebounding (9.1), blocks (2.2), and field goal percentage (.515). – Yale on the rebound. Rather than letting a bad loss send them into a tailspain as has happened in previous years, the Bulldogs went up to Harvard and Dartmouth and swept the weekend. Yale is playing with much more toughness at this point, dominating on the boards and getting to the line very frequently, which is why it has won five of seven. – Brian Grandieri. The junior wing appears to be completely over his Achilles problems, averaging 17.8 points on 58.7-percent shooting over the past five games. Always a very strong rebounder and passer for the Quakers, Grandieri has added an outside shot to his repertoire and is knocking down three-pointers at a 53.1-percent clip this season. – Dartmouth showing progress. The Big Green already has won more games this season (seven) than it did all of last year (six), and still has 10 games left. Leon Pattman is getting more help from his supporting cast of underclassmen, particularly a promising sophomore class that is beginning to come into its own, led by Alex Barnett and DeVon Mosley.		Distressing – Columbia’s slide continues. Lion fans are undergoing some serious déjà vu right about now, as Columbia once again raised hopes by racing out to a nice record early on, only to dash them with a poor start to Ivy play. Joe Jones needs to find an answer to his team’s offensive malaise, or an important opportunity to build momentum for next year will be lost. – Kyle Koncz on crutches. Joe Scott is hopeful Koncz will be able to go this weekend after resting his injured foot over break and sitting out the loss at Seton Hall. The Tigers have looked terrible the last two games with their top scorer and best defensive player sidelined with a stress fracture, and at 0-2 in the league, the margin for error is now gone. – Quaker defense lit up again. Penn just can’t play defense against non-midmajors this year, allowing 84 points on 67 possessions against Saint Joseph’s. It’s the fifth time this season that a high major or major opponent has put up more than 1.20 points per possession, which means this probably won’t be the year the Quakers snap their tournament skid. – Brown’s identity crisis. The Bears can’t decide what kind of team they are this season, and that was evident in this weekends’ pair of four-point defeats. After a 56-52 loss in a 59-possession game with Dartmouth on Friday night, Brown scored more points in Saturday’s second half alone (57), combining with Harvard to put up 180 points on the evening. – Poor finish to non-league schedule. A strong January against non-league opponents had brought the Ivy League’s overall record to within two games of .500 with five games left outside the league. However, Ivy teams fell far short of the 4-1 performance required for a winning record, as Dartmouth and Penn were upset on their home courts.