Quakers and Bears and Elis, oh my!

Carrying a five-game winning streak, Penn attempts to take care of some unfinished business with Yale tonight. This is it. The game every player on the Penn men's basketball team has been waiting for. No, not the Princeton game Tuesday night, but the rematch against Yale tonight. Five weeks ago the Quakers' suffered a painful 71-70 overtime loss in New Haven, Conn., during the season's inaugural Ivy League weekend. But since then, the Red and Blue (12-9 overall, 5-1 Ivy League) have gone 7-1, and Penn is well aware that without victories over the Elis this evening and Brown (5-15, 2-6) Saturday night, Tuesday's matchup with the Tigers will not mean diddly-squat. "We are not overlooking anyone," senior Penn guard Garett Kreitz said. "We let one slip away in New Haven, and at this point we are just going to go out there and try to beat the heck out of everyone we face." Penn's two foes this weekend have been going in opposite directions recently. While Yale (10-10, 5-3) has won six out of its last eight games, Brown has only managed two victories since the new year. In addition to the fact that the only blemish on Penn's Ivy record was made by the Elis, it is quite clear which game holds more significance. The Quakers' player who admitted this game has "extra-incentive" to him is Kreitz. The co-captain still takes personal responsibility for the Yale loss a month ago. But Penn head coach Fran Dunphy commented that, while he understands his senior guard's personal motivation, every one of his players understands how big the games this weekend are. "If I have to say anything to these guys about how devastating the Yale loss was and how important this weekend is, than we are not where we need to be as a basketball team," Dunphy said. "I don't think words are necessary." The ninth-year Penn coach rarely remains mute, but this time around the plan look is quite insightful. From Kreitz down to the youngest player on the team, freshman guard Lamar Plummer, Dunphy's silence is hitting home. "I think we are a much more confident team than we were a few weeks back," Plummer said. "We don't need to be told how important this weekend is. We know exactly what has to go down. Our new rotation -- using eight to 10 guys -- has helped us in recent games and should be successful again this weekend if we play smart." Playing heads-up basketball is always a key, but maybe even more important will be the way Penn plays defense against the Elis tonight. Just over a month ago, senior Yale guard Matt Ricketts had a career night against Penn. He bombed the Quakers for 23 points, nailing one big trey after another down the stretch to allow Yale to get back in the game and win it in overtime. This time around Penn is going to need a solution to shutting down the pesky Ricketts while keeping a lid on the Ivy's second-leading scorer, Emerson Whitley. The 6'6'' senior out of Tucson, Ariz., averages 16.8 points-per-game while hauling down 6.7 rebounds a contest. Back on January 10, Ricketts was forced to carry Yale on his shoulders because of an injury to Elis point guard Gabe Hunterton and Penn's superior defense on Whitley. Using a trio of Quakers -- juniors Paul Romanczuk and Jed Ryan and freshman Josh Sanger -- Penn stuffed the Bulldog's big man, holding him to nine points and three boards before he fouled out of the contest with 11 minutes remaining. "We are going to have to probably play good solid basketball and not leave anybody free," Dunphy said. "We probably will not double-team Whitley down low often [lacking Ryan's low-post presence], so we will need to contest just about every shot that they take." While it sounds like Dunphy and his cracker-jack coaching staff have been hard at work preparing for this weekend, Yale's head man Dick Kuchen appeared flustered when propositioned about his strategy for coming up victorious again over the Quakers. "Ummm? I don't know. Uhh? we have not been thinking about that too much yet," Kuchen said, referring to how he might defend Penn's talented point guard Michael Jordan. Suddenly following a long pause -- as if coach Kuchen realized the game he was commenting on was tomorrow -- blurting out something about Jordan being a solid shooter. Whether Kuchen has his Elis ready to play tonight is not the story, because no matter how Yale comes out, Penn can not accept anything less than a victory with the Princeton contest around the corner. Not this evening nor tomorrow night -- when a Brown team Penn manhandled 75-58 earlier this season shows up at the Palestra. "We need to beat Yale and Brown for Princeton to mean anything," Dunphy said. "And they are both capable of beating us if we do not do what we are supposed to."

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