Game of the Week
Yale (13-12, 9-3 Ivy) at Penn (19-8, 10-1 Ivy) – Friday, March 2, 7:00 pm
This one feels very anticlimactic after it looked like it could be for the Ivy title as recently as Saturday, however Yale’s blowout loss at home to Columbia changed all that. The game still has championship implications, but really only in the sense that Penn can clinch the league with a win. The Bulldogs aren’t out of it officially, but they would have to sweep the Ps on the road while needing the Quakers also to lose either against Brown on Saturday or Princeton on Tuesday. Even if the league race is all but over, there’s still the matter of Penn looking for payback for the loss in New Haven and Yale looking to send a message for next season, as a win would give the Bulldogs a season sweep. It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd shows up, since Penn students will be on spring break, but who knows how many tickets were purchased by the public when it looked like Yale might be coming in with only two losses.

Line of the Week

2.23.2007 at Harvard TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT TP A TO BLK S MIN Zoller, Mark…………. 9-15 3-6 0-0 1 7 8 21 6 1 0 1 29
Impressing – Penn headed for a three-peat. The 1990s saw three back-to-back- to-back dynasties, but the Quakers are a near-lock to be the first team to win three straight crowns this millennium. Penn’s seven NCAA Tournament bids in nine years is a run of Ivy success that ranks behind only the 1969-70 to 1979-80 Quakers, who claimed nine in 11 seasons. – Another career high for McAndrew. Mark McAndrew had only six points at intermission on Saturday, but he exploded against Cornell in the second half, pouring in 27 points en route to a career-best 33-point night. The junior now has scored in double figures in 21 straight games for the Bears, and leads all scorers with 20.0 points per Ivy contest. – Lions roar at The Church. For two hours on Saturday, a disappointing Ivy season for Columbia was forgotten, as the Lions did what few teams have been able to do over the past half-decade and laid the wood to Yale in its home gym. Columbia’s inside-outside game was working perfectly, as Joe Jones’s offense exploded, giving him a rare win against his older brother. – Housman’s one-man show. Just like in the first meeting at Jadwin Gym, Drew Housman went off in Saturday’s second half, scoring 17 points on 6-for-7 shooting and a perfect 5-for-5 performance at the line. Princeton had no answer defensively for Houmsan in the final 20 minutes, as he repeatedly sliced through the Tiger zone on the way to the hoop. – Big Green bounces back. Coming off what had to be one of the worst offensive performances in program history last weekend at Brown, Dartmouth ambushed Princeton and nearly took down Penn. Senior Leon Pattman had a big final weekend in front of the home crowd at Leede Arena, averaging 17.0 points for the Big Green in the two games.		Distressing – Another letdown for Yale. The pop psychologists masquerading as sportswriters will say it was a case of the Bulldogs looking ahead to Penn and/or coming out flat after the emotional win over Cornell 24 hours earlier. Whatever it was, this was the latest in a line of surprising losses that have haunted the program and repeatedly sabotaged seasons. – A new low for Princeton. Prior to this season, Princeton’s 2004-05 league mark of 6-8 back in Joe Scott’s first season stood as the worst Ivy record in school history. However, after a sweep at the hands of second-division inhabitants Dartmouth and Harvard, the Tigers fell to 2-9, which means there will be a new worst Ivy record on the books. – Penn’s second-half defense. Glen Miller had his team playing great defense during the five-game homestand, but Penn took a step back on the road this weekend. The Quakers surrendered 40 points on 39 possessions after halftime on Friday, then watched as Dartmouth put up 46 points on 32 second-half possession, taking Penn down to the wire. – Turnovers plaguing Big Red. Steve Donahue’s squad took care of the ball nicely during the first 13 games, committing turnovers on a respectable 21.8 percent of possessions. However, that figure has risen all the way to 25.8 percent in the 13 games since then, including a league-worst 25.9-percent turnover percentage in Ivy play. – Princeton playing time allocation. The Tigers are struggling mightily to put up points, and yet productive offensive players are spending most of their time on the bench. Excluding the injured Kyle Koncz, the regulars with the five best effective field goal percentages have played just 32.4 percent of the minutes, while the bottom five are getting 56.1 percent.