PITTSBURGH - This afternoon, the Penn men's basketball team will try to pull off a first-round upset in an NCAA Tournament that's already seen its fair share. The Quakers, an 11 seed in the South region, look to knock off 6th-seeded California at approximately 3:00 p.m.
Yesterday, five lower seeds advanced to the second round. UNC- Wilmington and Wyoming scored the day's two biggest upsets. Wyoming, seeded 11th in the West region, took down perennial Cinderella Gonzaga in Albuquerque, while UNC-Wilmington shocked USC, a team that made the Elite Eight last year and was for many a dark horse pick to advance to the Final Four out of the South. If the Quakers want to follow suit, they'll have to get by a formidable Cal team. The Golden Bears - who, at 12-6, tied for second in the Pac-10 this year - boast wins over tournament teams Stanford, USC (twice), Oregon and UCLA (twice). While the Bears fell to the Quakers, 74-71, in the Golden Bear Classic in Berkeley, Ca. two years ago, their recent Ivy League experiences have been more positive. Cal beat Princeton, 70-58, in November and Harvard, 69-54, in December. While the Bears have had success against Ancient Eight teams this season, don't expect the guys from the West Coast to take Penn lightly. "We certainly have respect for Penn," Cal coach Ben Braun said at yesterday's press conference. "Their forwards are very athletic and their guards have a lot of quickness, quick off the dribble and quick getting off their shots. Our team is familiar [with the Quakers] and understands who they are, what they are and how they play." Plus, three of Cal's current starters were also starters on the squad that lost to the Quakers two years ago. Junior forward Joe Shipp, senior center Solomon Hughes and junior point guard Shantay Legans all saw significant time in that game. They seem to have matured over the past two years. Shipp leads the team in scoring at 14.8 points per game, and is coming off his best performance of the year, 25 against Arizona in the Pac-10 tournament. The 6'11' Hughes is leading the Pac-10 in field goal percentage for the second straight year, knocking them down at a 58.7 percent clip. Legans has been the Golden Bears' point guard for three years, and he dishes out 3.8 assists per game. Rounding out the Cal starting five are freshman forward Jamal Sampson and junior guard Brian Wethers. Wethers, who was also on that Cal squad two years ago, averages 10.1 points per game. Sampson, a 6'11' phenom, leads the team in rebounding and blocked shots, and is a cousin of former Virgina star Ralph Sampson. Off the bench, the Golden Bears feature another freshman, 22-year-ol d Israeli Amit Tamir, who came to Cal after his mandatory stint in the Israeli Army. Tamir made the Pac-10's all-Freshman team, and is Cal's second- leading scorer. On Feb. 7, Tamir scored 39 in the Bears' 107-103 double overtime victory over Pac-10 champ Oregon. Despite that scoring outburst, Cal's defense is the best in the offensive-minded Pac-10, allowing just 66.4 points per game by holding opponents to less than 42 percent field-goal shooting. The Quakers know a thing or two about defense, allowing opponents 63.3 points per game on 40.8 percent field goal shooting in the admittedly less flashy Ivy League. Penn coach Fran Dunphy and his players found themselves fielding plenty of questions about why they're not "a typical Ivy League team" at yesterday's press conference. "I hear that terminology all the time - a typical Ivy League team - and I don't know what that is," Dunphy said. I know we're a pretty good basketball team that has played well during the course of the year."
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