The Penn men's basketball team stands a mere three wins short of history. The Quakers look to finish undefeated in Ivy League play for the seventh time in program history and the first time since the 1999-2000 season. "We never talk about that, so it's not something we've concerned ourselves with," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Maybe the players do in their own mind, but I'm certainly not going to bring it up." Besides searching for history, Penn (19-5, 11-0 Ivy) has a much more tangible goal in its games this weekend when it hosts Columbia and Cornell -- an NCAA Tournament berth. Should the Quakers sweep the weekend of play, the team will clinch its second straight Ivy League title and a spot in March Madness. Penn's final game at Princeton, usually the game that decides the winner of the Ancient Eight would be rendered moot. Even though Columbia (2-23, 0-12) and Cornell (9-16, 4-8) are traditionally Ivy League doormats, each presents a challenge for the frontrunning Quakers. A year ago, Columbia defeated the Quakers at the Palestra by a 54-53 margin and earlier this season, fell in an ugly 47-40 decision. Columbia senior center Chris Wiedemann tallied 14 points and 11 rebounds in the losing effort. "Their center, Chris Wiedemann, is a good player," Dunphy said. "We've played against him for four years now so we have great respect for him. He's a talented guy, he can run the floor very well, block shots and he has a good offensive game when he gets the opportunities down low." Penn senior Ugonna Onyekwe was the lone offensive force for the Quakers in the win over Columbia, scoring 16 points. In a well-rounded effort, he also tallied seven boards, five assists, three steals and two blocks. Despite the close final score, the outcome in New York was never in doubt. However, that was not the case in Ithaca, N.Y., earlier this season. Penn was fortunate to escape Cornell with a 70-67 win that was not certain until a Big Red three-pointer clanged off the rim with two seconds remaining. Cornell "coach [Steve] Donahue coached with us for 10 years so he knows us very well," Dunphy said. "Not only our philosophies, but he knows our personnel as well." Penn also had difficulty containing Cornell's center, as Eric Taylor put up 17 points on 7-for-12 shooting against Penn. Ka'Ron Barnes, the Big Red's leading scorer on the season, had 11 as Cornell shot 53 percent from the floor in the losing effort. "They shot it extremely well," Dunphy said. "We didn't do a very good job of defending them. We just happened to score a few more points than they did." Key to scoring points for the Quakers in their two huge wins over Brown and Yale last weekend was Jeff Schiffner. The junior guard and reigning Ivy League Player of the Week scored 39 points while shooting 10-for-15 from three-point range in the wins. By virtue of the season sweep over Brown -- the Bears' only two Ivy League losses this season -- Penn holds tiebreakers over the second-place team as well as a two-game lead in the conference race. What that means in simple terms is that if Penn wins any two of their remaining three games -- including the season finale at Princeton Tuesday -- the Quakers win the league. If Penn wins one game combined with a Brown loss, then the Quakers clinch as well. But if they lose one game, they don't make history.
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