'Biggest weekend' of year ahead

The Penn men's basketball team beat its archrival Princeton, 65-55, Tuesday night, but has little time to look back on its most important win of the season. The Quakers now have to play the top team in the Ivy League and the runner-up from a year ago. Some reward. "I think we felt good about the victory against Princeton but I don't know that there was a lot of celebrating," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "What is there to celebrate? The fact that we have won an additional game in the league?" Penn (13-5, 5-0) will face Yale (10-9, 6-0) on Friday and Brown (10-9 6-0) Saturday in games that could determine the early Ivy League favorite. "This is probably the biggest weekend of the year for us," Penn guard Jeff Schiffner said. The Quakers will play the Elis for the first time since their playoff game last March when they competed for the right to play in the NCAA Tournament. The Quakers won that game, 77-58, behind Koko Archibong's 21 points and 16 rebounds. Against Princeton, Archibong was silent, fouling out after only 17 scoreless minutes. "We can't be the best team we can be without Koko being very effective for us," Dunphy said. "We need him to play, and we need him to play well both offensively and defensively. And part of that defensive effectiveness will be not having your butt on the bench too long with fouls. And some of those fouls are just foolish and he knows that better than anyone." Archibong, a first team All-Ivy selection a year ago, has struggled with foul trouble much of the season. However, especially against Princeton, senior forward Ugonna Onyekwe has picked up the slack. Onyekwe had arguably his finest game at Penn on Tuesday, scoring 22 points and pulling down 12 rebounds. Despite the Quakers' apparent advantage down low, Yale defeated Penn last season in New Haven, Conn., and gave the Quakers all they could handle in a 72-63 Penn win at the Palestra last season. However, the Elis have been disappointing thus far this season after being the preseason No. 2 -- behind Penn -- in the league. Much of their substandard start -- the Elis have lost two league games already after losing only three in the regular season last year -- can be attributed to circumstances beyond their control. Alex Gamboa -- the Ivy League Rookie of the Year last season -- went down with appendicitis on Jan. 11. The sophomore is averaging only 5.6 points per game this year as he slowly works his way back. "They started off pretty strong -- [Yale] did," Penn guard David Klatsky said. "They had some good, quality wins and then they had that incident [a January car accident in which four Yale students were killed] and it shook them up a little. I don't see anything wrong with them, they had two losses to a good team." Yale dropped both its games to travel partner Brown (6-0 Ivy League) who seems to have supplanted Yale as the non-Penn-Princeton team to contend with this season. Brown's run to the top of the Ivy League has been sparked by senior guard Earl Hunt, who leads the Ivy League in scoring with 19.4 points per game. Hunt is also the current Ivy League Player of the Week. "He guns," Klatsky said. "We're going to be ready for that. We've dealt with him in the past, and he's going to get his looks. We hope to contain him as much as we can and leave it on the other players." Penn's 'other players' need to step up around Onyekwe this weekend, as they did against Princeton when Schiffner scored 18 points for the Quakers -- if they want two wins.

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