Defense key to payback with Brown

After dropping a game in the final minutes at Yale a night earlier, the Penn men's basketball team had virtually assured itself an .500 weekend.

The Quakers were up by four with seven seconds left. An errant three-point shot was tipped in by the Bears' Jaime Kilburn and the official's whistle blew.

A foul was called and Kilburn was on the line with just over three seconds remaining and his team down by two.

The Brown senior center was instructed by his coach Glen Miller to miss the shot -- but not too badly. Kilburn did a perfect job as his shot bounced off the back of the rim and found its way into his teammate Mike Martin's hands.

Martin turned, faced the basket and let a shot go an instant before the clock ran out.

Martin's shot went through the net and electrified the Brown faithful, giving the Bears enough momentum to pull out a 92-88 victory over the Quakers in overtime.

With five games in the interim, Penn looks to atone for its last loss of the season as Brown (10-11, 6-2 Ivy) visits the Palestra tonight.

"We were a different basketball team than we are today," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "I hope this weekend will bear that out."

This weekend marks a long-awaited rematch for the Quakers, who are not necessarily looking for revenge, but rather two solid victories. This time, the Bears will have to travel to the Palestra, an indisputable home-court advantage for the Red and Blue.

And this time, Penn will be more prepared for the antics of Brown's top players -- Kilburn and junior Jason Forte. In the January loss to Brown, Kilburn burned the Quakers, scoring a career-high 26 points -- fueling the highest point total that the Quakers have surrendered this season.

"Kilburn killed us last time," Penn junior Tim Begley said.

Forte, the younger brother of former NBA player Joe Forte, added 23 points.

"We lost the game last time because our defense wasn't as solid overall as it needs to be," Dunphy said.

Forte is the league's third-leading scorer, contributing an average of 16.3 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-1 junior from Rockville, Md., is possibly the only player who can beat the Quakers at their own game -- the three-point shot. Forte is shooting a blistering 41 percent from behind the arc, not too far behind Penn's current sharpshooter, Begley.

"We have a plan [to stop Forte]," Dunphy added. "I'm not going to say exactly what it is. So that when Brown comes here tomorrow, they pick up the DP and say, 'Okay, they're going to quadruple team Forte.'"

But Dunphy stresses that there's more to Brown than Kilburn and Forte.

"They had five guys in double digits last weekend," he said.

Begley, who has tallied 66 trifectas in 20 games on roughly 49 percent shooting from behind the arc, is the man to beat in the Ivy League. Senior guard Jeff Schiffner, who has led the Ivy League and the nation in three-point shooting in recent years, is not far behind Begley, shooting 42 percent from behind the arc thus far.

The Quakers, riding high on a five-game winning streak, have had all week to prepare for the Bears and tomorrow night's opponent, Yale. A full week of preparation comes as a luxury after five games over the past two weeks, including a road trip to Princeton, N.J.

And, as opposed to the last time these two teams faced off, the Quakers now have a group of talented players with reasonable experience on the bench. Since the end of January, the Red and Blue's bench has played more and contributed more.

Penn's bench contributed only six points in the loss to Brown. The Quakers' subs did remarkably better last weekend, adding 29 points against Cornell and a total of 20 against Columbia.

Notably, freshman Ibby Jaaber and junior transfer Eric Osmundson have become increasingly integral in the Quakers' lineup. Jaaber dropped 17 points against Cornell and 16 against Columbia, as opposed to his January performance in Providence -- zero points in 10 minutes.

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