Penn faces 'Nova with Owens out

The Penn men's basketball team must take on Bit 5 rival Villanova without the injured Geoff Owens. After Yale and Harvard's overtime performances against Princeton the past two weekends, the Quakers now stand alone atop the Ivy League for the first time in three years. In the Big 5, Penn also find itself in a position it has not seen in quite a few years. The Quakers take on Villanova tonight at the DuPont Pavilion in an attempt to go 4-0 in the Big 5 for the first time since 1973-74. Unfortunately for the Quakers, their chances of sweeping the Big 5 took a major blow yesterday. After Sunday's initial HUP examination of Geoff Owens -- who split his chin open on the floor of Leede Arena against Dartmouth Saturday -- the 6'11" center was diagnosed with a bruised jaw and cleared to play. Yesterday, however, X-rays revealed that Owens jaw was fractured. Owens' jaw was wired and he will miss tonight's game. The junior has been cleared to move around lightly at Wednesday's practice and could return to action as early as this weekend's Ivy games. "Right now he is getting his jaw wired and is on day-to-day status," Penn center Josh Sanger said. The Quakers will have their hands full under the basket with Owens in street clothes. The Wildcats will try to utilize 6'10" forward Malik Allen -- who scored 25 points and grabbed 11 boards in 'Nova's 90-84 overtime loss to Providence on Saturday. But the Quakers should not be counted out just yet. Penn played all of last season without Owens, who sat out the entire season with a medical condition. "With Owens in there you have two inside scorers you can go to," forward Paul Romanczuk said. "We played without him last year, so we got use to it. It's nothing that we want to have to get used to again." "The whole make-up of our team changes," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "He has blocked 48 shots for the year. Josh Sanger is going to have to step up. Jed Ryan will have to play a role that he played a lot last year." As the Quakers' biggest body last year, the 6'8" Sanger started 16 games, averaging 1.6 points and 2.4 rebounds. "It gives me a lot of confidence," Sanger said. "I played the same role last year. For me that means that I am going to have to get my head in the game early and play hard for the amount of minutes that I do get." The Quakers will also rely on sophomore Lamar Plummer, senior Frank Brown and junior Mike Sullivan in their attempt to avenge Penn's 89-62 loss to Villanova in the teams' last meeting, December 10, 1996 at the Palestra. Fortunately for the Quakers, the Wildcats have long since bid goodbye to Alvin Williams, Jason Lawson and Tim Thomas -- the stars of that '97 squad. "You look at that team now. Three? guys are in the NBA," Penn guard Matt Langel said. "We have learned a lot and grown up a lot since then." While the Wildcats do not have the same star power, they have not lost the athleticism or the offense, as they average 76.1 points per contest. "There are about four or five guys that can get big numbers if you allow them to get it," Dunphy said. With Lawson and Thomas gone, 'Nova has switched its offensive emphasis to the perimeter; the Wildcats attempt one-third of their field goals from beyond the arc. Villanova's well-distributed shooting attack boasts four players -- guards John Celestand, Howard Brown and Jermaine Medley and forward Brian Lynch -- who have each attempted 100 treys this season. "We're very similar in a lot of ways to Penn," 'Nova coach Steve Lappas said. "We are both very good three-point shooting teams. We both move the ball very well." For Villanova, this game has NCAA implications. The Wildcats could see their hopes of an at-large berth fade with a loss to Penn. "If we are going to have a chance to get into the NCAA tournament, we are going to have to do the best that we can in these next few games," Lappas said. While a win for the Quakers would give them some added national attention, the Quakers are trying to keep focus on their No. 1 goal -- the Ivy League championship.

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