Last year, four Villanova starters combined to score 67 points against the Penn men's basketball team. All four will be back on the court when the Quakers battle the Wildcats on New Year's Eve at the Pavillion.
Penn starts its Winter Break schedule in Villanova and then travels to San Francisco and Chicago to begin the new year.
Both Penn (4-3, 1-1 Big 5) and Villanova (3-1, 1-1) boast young squads this season. But while the Red and Blue has found the most success when senior swingman Tim Begley is hot, the Wildcats do not have a veteran as the focal point of their offense.
In fact, their two highest scorers this season are juniors.
The most intimidating Wildcats player right now is junior forward Curtis Sumpter, who is currently tied for first on the team in points and leads the team in rebounding.
Sumpter's upswing has surprised Big 5 fans. He went from scoring two points in his opening game as a freshman to 23 points in Villanova's season-ending loss to Siena two seasons ago.
Sumpter is complemented in the backcourt by fellow junior Allan Ray, Villanova's co-leading scorer and a deadly three-point artist.
He enters this week shooting 44 percent from behind the arc.
Ray will be a particular threat to the Quakers, who have had their hands full facing solid outside shooters, like Steven Smith of La Salle and Kevin Bettencourt of Bucknell, this season.
Penn, however, has made tangible improvements in its perimeter defense since giving up 11 trifectas at Providence earlier this year. In last week's loss to Temple, the Quakers held the Cherry and White to 2-for-17 from three-point range.
They will need to carry that same energy into this game in order to contain Ray.
Rounding out the Villanova starting five are clutch shooter Randy Foye and point guard Mike Nardi, who lit up the Quakers for 20 points when the two teams squared off last season.
Whoever wins this matchup will have an extra reason to pop the champagne at midnight, as the winner of this game will most likely end the season second in the Big 5. Both teams have already lost to Temple in disappointing fashion and swiftly beaten La Salle this year.
After the quick drive to suburban Villanova, the Quakers will fly to the other side of the country to take on San Francisco on Tuesday, Jan. 4.
The matchup against the Dons should be an interesting one for the Quakers. San Francisco (5-3) enters this week on a four-game winning streak, capped off by a 26-point bruising of Saint Joseph's, last season's Big 5 champions. This season's Hawks are certainly not the Elite Eight team they were last year, but the fact that St. Joe's never even had a chance to win the game speaks to the quality of the Dons' team.
San Francisco's overtime loss to then-No. 25 Stanford also shows that the Quakers will be playing a competitive team by the Bay next month. All-West Coast Conference guard John Cox scored 11 straight points in the final 1:50 of regulation to tie the game at 79, but San Francisco ran out of gas in the extra period.
Penn's third opponent of the break will be the University of Illinois-Chicago (2-3).
When the Quakers meet the Flames Jan. 8, they will be facing a team that lost to No. 3 Georgia Tech by a single point earlier this season.
The Flames are led by forward Cedrick Banks, who scored 23 against the Yellow Jackets and averages 14.2 points per game. Banks will be just another challenge on a difficult roadtrip.
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