M. Hoops drops contest to Lions

NEW YORK -- For the second time in just over a week, the Penn men's basketball team had to push through a crowd of Ivy League students flooding the court in celebration. A week ago, the Quakers made their way through a crowd of jubilant Harvard students after the Crimson's 15-point victory. On Saturday, the Quakers weaved in and out of the 100-or-so powder-blue-shirted Columbia fans who rushed the Levien Gymnasium floor seconds after the Lions (10-13, 5-5 Ivy League) finished handing the Quakers (9-15, 6-3) their third conference loss in eight days. "They outplayed us," Quakers senior center Geoff Owens said of the Lions. "They were the better team tonight. You can't really put anything on it, just that, in every aspect of the game, they outplayed us." Well, not in every aspect. The Quakers out-rebounded the Lions by a significant margin, but shot just under 30 percent from the field, while the Lions shot slightly below 45 percent. The Quakers led only twice in this game, at 2-0 and 4-2. The Red and Blue tied the game at seven, but Lions guard Craig Austin's two free throws put his team up for good, at 9-7. The Lions led by 13 at halftime, and never led by less than seven points after that. "All I know is that, every time I played 'em, I lost," Columbia coach Armond Hill said of the Quakers. "In order to be the best, you've got to beat 'em. It's a big win, no doubt." It was an emotional -- and surprisingly successful -- weekend for Hill and his team. Having lost two heartbreakers at Yale and Brown the week before, the Lions defeated Princeton and Penn on consecutive nights, after losing badly to both teams earlier in the season. "When [Penn] played us at [the Palestra] they had a different aggressiveness," Hill said. "They smelled a win. They hadn't won in five or six games, and after about the first five minutes, they saw, 'Oh, we can get this,' and they attacked. "They attacked today, but I thought our guys answered it." Penn coach Fran Dunphy was impressed with Columbia's play. "[Columbia] might be the best basketball team in the league right now," Dunphy said. "They're playing as well together as any team that we've played over the last couple of weeks, and I think that's saying something." The loss must be especially disappointing for the Quakers, coming as it did on the heels of a gritty, last-second victory over Cornell on Friday. The Quakers trailed the Big Red (7-15, 3-6) much of the way, but, with the score tied at 57, point guard David Klatsky hit Owens with a lob pass, which the big man then slammed home for the lead and the win. "We survived [Friday] night," Dunphy said. "We came away with a very hard-fought victory. "We just kind of got lucky at the end, things opened up for us. We have a layup by Geoff at the end of the game to win over another team that's playing well." Dunphy pointed to the Big Red's 17-point rout of the Tigers on Saturday as evidence that both of New York's Ivy League teams are indeed playing very well at midseason. The traditional conference elite however, are not playing well. The other big story from this weekend is that, even though the Quakers stumbled, the Tigers -- who, before Friday, held a one-game lead over the rest of the field -- stumbled twice this weekend, losing to both Columbia and Cornell by 17. The Quakers are now locked in a three-way tie for the conference lead with Princeton and Yale. Yes, Yale. "Teams are playing well at this point," Dunphy said. "I wish we were playing better than we are." Nevertheless, Dunphy remains guardedly optimistic about his team's chances for a title. "Anything can still happen," Dunphy said. "We have control of our own destiny, and that's how we have to look at it, and we're just going to have to keep plugging away."

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