Copp, Jaaber keep Cornell's Barnes at bay

Cornell guard Ka'Ron Barnes entered Saturday night's game against Penn leading the Ivy League in scoring with 21.1 points per game.

When the buzzer sounded, Penn had held a leading candidate for Ivy League Player of the Year to just 10 points on 3-for-8 shooting.

Playing stifling man-to-man defense, Penn guards Charlie Copp and Ibby Jabber nagged, irked and denied the prolific scorer the ball throughout the Quakers' 84-69 victory.

Barnes also committed an uncharacteristic seven turnovers -- a statistic Cornell coach Steve Donahue attributed to his leader's frustration.

"He's used to having the ball in his hands so much," the former Penn assistant said. "Now I think he wasn't his normal self when he had his opportunities tonight -- that's the seven turnovers that you see."

And, as Barnes went, so did a vastly improved Cornell squad.

After the Big Red achieved a 25-19 lead midway in the first half, Penn responded with a 15-1 run into intermission.

In the second half, Cornell struck back to take a 44-43 lead with 13:22 remaining in the contest.

But Donahue's team could not muster the strength to withstand a high-powered Penn offense, which outscored Cornell 41-25 for the rest of the game en route to its 15-point victory.

Jaaber came off the bench to help lead the offensive charge, bringing his signature palpable energy to the Palestra floor and wreaking havoc on the defensive end.

The standout freshman tied a career-high with 17 points -- 14 in the second-half -- on 6-for-9 shooting, also recording an impressive four steals, several of which led to easy transition buckets during Penn's second-half run.

"We picked our momentum up and the game was a little more fast paced," Jaaber said. "We picked it up on the defensive end. We got a couple of outlets and fastbreak points off of that."

Penn coach Fran Dunphy - who remains undefeated against his former assistant at 8-0--praised the freshman's precocious efforts.

"He's got good poise for a freshman," Dunphy said. "If we're not running our offense real smoothly, it's nice to have somebody who can break the defense down, and that's one of the things he can do. He creates such havoc defensively with getting his hands on balls so he gets some easy baskets."

Jaaber was not the only member of Penn's backcourt to shine Friday night. It was back to his usual form for senior Jeff Schiffner, after scoring only 13 points the previous weekend.

Schiffner tallied 24 points on 7-12 shooting -- including 6-9 from behind the three-point arc.

"He got free a couple times tonight where maybe he didn't last weekend and he took advantage of it," Dunphy said. "When he did get a good look he knocked it down."

The ever-steady Copp completed another solid game, dishing out four assists without committing a single turnover.

In his 34 minutes, Copp also scored 14 points and recorded two steals in addition to bottling up Cornell's leading scorer for most of the game.

"I recruited Charlie and I'm really proud of him," Donahue said. "For three years I think he was looked at as someone that couldn't handle his job. He's stepped up. He makes you pay for every time you lax up on him. He's a really solid point guard, and people I think don't give him enough credit."

Rounding out the backcourt's stellar performance, junior Tim Begley was Penn's fourth guard in double figures, finishing with 13 points and six assists.

Still alive in the race for Ivy supremacy, the Quakers will look to next weekend to pursue what now seems to be an unlikely path to the NCAA Tournament.

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