M. Hoops | Penn looks to keep up with red hot Big Red

The importance of beating Cornell tomorrow night is crystal clear. Figuring out how is a much trickier proposition, or at least it has been for the Ivy League opponents Cornell has faced so far.

The first-place Big Red (14-6, 4-0 Ivy) have comfortably beaten Yale, Brown and Columbia (twice), and during their current nine-game winning streak have compiled an average margin of victory of 22.7 points. The Quakers (5-11, 1-1) have shown improvement in their last three games, and this home contest represents their best chance all year to throw a wrench in Cornell's bid for back-to-back league titles.

"We know what they've got," Penn senior guard Kevin Egee said.

It would be hard not to. The Big Red are tops in the conference in scoring, free-throw shooting, field-goal percentage, three-pointers, three-point percentage, rebounding margin, blocks, assists and turnover margin.

A pair of juniors provide most of the fireworks. Ryan Wittman, a 6-foot-6 forward, and Louis Dale, a 5-11 point guard, average a combined 33.5 points, the best statistical one-two punch in the league. This has come despite the preseason loss of three-point specialist Adam Gore, who returned to the court only last weekend and is not 100 percent. But Cornell's offense has not suffered, partly because of the emergence of senior center Jeff Foote, whom Penn coach Glen Miller identified as a big concern.

Standing 7-feet tall and weighing a slim 245, Foote has the size to be an imposing yet agile post presence. He averaged 21.5 minutes and 7.9 points last year without starting once; this year he has solidified his lineup slot by averaging 12.3 points and seven rebounds per game.

The question for Miller is how aggressively Foote should be double-teamed. If the Quakers do try to lock Foote down, they must then make sure he does not pass to teammates that the double-team leaves uncovered, Miller said.

Cornell has depth, but Wittman is the big scoring threat, with size, a deadly jump-shot and a hard-to-block release. He dropped 33 in a 10-point loss to then-No. 16 Syracuse in December.

"He can shoot from anywhere on the court at any moment, so we always have to have an awareness of him," Egee said.

Dale is a fine distributor and adds 14.8 points on average, despite missing the first eight games of the year with an ailing hamstring.

It will bode well for Penn if Princeton can play a competitive game against Cornell tonight. Against Brown last Friday, Cornell built a huge early lead, allowing coach Steve Donahue to rest his starters. They still had a full tank of gas the next night and - surprise, surprise - smoked Yale by 28.

Princeton, at 2-0, is the only other undefeated team in the league, meaning that one will lose that status tonight.

All six of the Big Red's losses this year have come away from their Ithaca, N.Y., home. But Cornell's 14-0 Ivy campaign last year included only the fourth sweep of the Penn-Princeton road trip, by any team, in history. Accomplishing the feat in back-to-back years will be a first and will bring the current era of Cornell basketball closer to dynastic status.

But the Quakers could also be dead-even in the standings with the No. 1 team by the end of the weekend. For an early-February game, the stakes could hardly be higher or more obvious.

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