Dan McQuade: Hunting the Golden Bears

Members of the Penn men's basketball team said they didn't know much about California, the Quakers first round opponent in the NCAA Tournament. "I haven't seen them play at all," Penn guard Tim Begley said. "But Koko [Archibong] is from around there, he's my scouting report -- I'll be asking him a lot of questions." When Begley asks Archibong about the Golden Bears, he will be pleasantly surprised at how well the Quakers match up against the No. 6 seed. The Golden Bears, ranked No. 25 in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Top 25 polls last week, appear to be paper tigers. Sure, they were 22-8 overall, including a 12-6 record which tied them for second place in the ultracompetitive Pac-10. They have an RPI of 29. They have wins over UCLA, Oregon and USC. Make that home wins -- plus an additional victory over UCLA at a neutral site -- over those three teams. The Bears are a pitiful 4-6 in road games this year, with their biggest losses coming at South Florida and Washington. On March 2, Cal suffered its second-worst loss ever, a 99-53 drubbing at Arizona -- a squad that has been up and down all season. Conversely, Penn is 10-2 on the road, and has won in tough places, such as Temple's Liacouras Center, Princeton's Jadwin Gym and Georgia Tech's Alexander Memorial Colosseum. In fact, before Penn's 79-74 win over the Yellow Jackets, Tech was 118-5 at home in non-conference games since 1981. Outside the Pac-10, the Bears faced zero teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament. The Quakers did lose to both Tourney teams they played -- Illinois and Davidson -- but their home loss to the latter was without point guard Andrew Toole. The Golden Bears only scheduled one non-conference road game -- and lost. Although they were 9-1 out of conference, all nine wins were played at California's home gym. The Quakers, however, were 14-3 in non-conference play, and were undefeated on the road outside of the Ivy League, including tough Big 5 wins against Temple and La Salle. In terms of overall out-of-conference play, the Quakers' non-conference RPI is 29 -- two spots ahead of the Bears. The Quakers do have a history with the Bears. Two seasons ago, Penn defeated Cal, 74-71, in the finals of the Golden Bear Classic. Penn's Michael Jordan scored 14 points and dished eight assists in that contest -- ending California's 14-game home winning streak. Three starters on California remain from that squad -- junior forward Joe Shipp, senior center Solomon Hughes, and junior point guard Shantay Legans. "I remember the game very vividly, it was a great win for us," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We hit like every shot we took, -- we shot over 60 percent. "But that's what it took to win the game, because we didn't do a great job of defending." In their current 10-game run, the Quakers have played excellent defense, holding their opponents to 55.7 points per game. Cal works the defensive end as well, holding opponents to 66.4 points per game, and the Bears notch eight steals and block four shots a game. "I hope that we're a little bit better defensive team this year than we were then," he said. "I think we've played better defensively in the last 10 games of the year." Cal starts a pair of 6-foot-11 players in the frontcourt. But the Bears are not great on the glass, getting outhustled on the boards, 35.5-33.9. All in all, with the way the Quakers have been playing in their last 10 games, they should not have any trouble taking down the Golden Bears on Friday.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.