A FRONT ROW VIEW: Ramblings on the road

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Travelling 17 hours to get to the Pits and the Pain made me question my Penn pride and sanity. The basketball road trip (make that snow trip, I don't think I actually saw the road) to see Penn play at Brown's Pizzitola Center and Yale's Payne Whitney Gym gave me plenty of time to ponder the central questions of my existence this weekend: Penn hoops and why I didn't apply to a school in California. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING: Brown's founding fathers were clearly not considering snow when they decided to put their school on the top of a hill. Either that or they figured no one would want to get to Brown anyway. TIM WHO: Brown seemed intent on giving Quaker sophomore forward Tim Krug an identity problem. The local radio station broadcasting the Penn-Brown game in Providence, R.I., insisted on calling him Tim King. Timmy Krug, Timmy King? Maybe the announcer thought he was watching Jimmy King. Probably not since the play-by-play lists him as Crug. But the announcer probably remained uncorrected because he wasn't on the air long enough as his station cut away to the Providence-Tennessee women's game at halftime. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE MISSING: Shortchanging men's basketball must be a Providence tradition, because shortly after halftime, many of the hardy 1,599 (I'm not sure the folks doing the official stats can count) souls watching Penn-Brown gave up on their Bears and cutaway next door for the start of the Brown-Cornell hockey game. I don't blame them. EIGHTY-SIX YEARS OF FUTILITY VS. 29 CHAMPIONSHIPS: Brown, which in its 86 years of play, has won a single Ivy League men's basketball championship, proudly displays an eight-foot banner on the east wall of its gym. This banner is flanked by four women's championship banners. Somehow the five strips of cloth don't look too imposing, but it made me think that the rafters of the Palestra could look like Boston Garden if there were a banner for each of Penn's 29 league championships. YALE, YALE, YOU SUCK: I'd thought I'd heard it all, but Saturday at Yale there was a chant that would only be uttered in the Ivy League. The Penn band seemed to derive great pleasure from shouting "We stole your Provost." Even though Penn beat Yale, my trip to New Haven was not complete as I didn't get to meet Judith. SHOULD HAVE LEFT ON THURSDAY: On the road Saturday, an accident closed I-95 for eight hours. Wonder how the Princeton bus fared in that traffic jam? Princeton coach Pete Carril must have been tearing out the few strands of hair he has left. Serves them right for not having the foresight to travel on Thursday as the Quakers did. PETE WHO: Brown doesn't quite revere Professor Pete. Friday night, the Bears' public address system advertised that the Princeton Tigers and Pete "Carol" would face Brown the next night. SUNNY NEW HAVEN: OK, even though I'm upset about not attending school in California, I'm sure glad I don't go to Yale. With a couple of hours to kill before tipoff in snowy New Haven, the best our potential tour guide could do was say, "You want something to do? This is Connecticut." HAPPY NO MORE: After graduating from Villanova in 1984, Brown coach Frank "Happy" Dobbs was drafted by the Sixers, Cowboys and Red Sox. Maybe he chose the wrong sport as coaching Brown basketball has not allowed this talented athlete to live up to his nickname with his 27-45 career record as Bears hoops coach. FAVORITE QUAKER STAT: In the ultimately useless but exceedingly fun category of average per 40 minutes of play, JV call-up Dave Katz leads Penn with a whopping 20 points and 26.7 boards per 40 minutes. Say what? Yeah, Katz made the most of his six minutes against Haverford when he poured in a trey and grabbed four rebounds. Of the regular players, it's no surprise that entering this weekend, Barry Pierce led the Quakers with an impressive 19.8 points per 40. Rachel Cytron is a College senior from Mountain Lakes, N.J., and former Sports Editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian.

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