A few hoops teams currently squeezed in the middle of the Ivy pack will be looking to break free at The Palestra this weekend.
The Quakers host Brown and Yale tonight and tomorrow mark the beginning of their second venture through the League.
Three weeks ago, Penn’s road trip to New England resulted in a controversial one-point win over the Bears and a 13-point loss to the Bulldogs.
Forward Jack Eggleston — who has played all but one minute of the Quakers’ Ivy schedule — understands that things will be different this time around, especially with hours of game tape from January added to the mix.
“We get a chance to see … what mistakes they made, how they guarded us [and] what they did well against us,” Eggleston said.
What the Quakers saw on film was a strong Penn defensive effort against two of the Ancient Eight’s top players, Brown’s Matt Mullery and Yale’s Alex Zampier, who they held to 12 and nine points, respectively, in the teams’ first meetings.
But in their past two losses, the Quakers let their guard down against their opponents’ secondary scorers.
The Red and Blue shut down Noruwa Agho of Columbia and Douglas Davis of Princeton but were burned by Niko Scott and Dan Mavraides.
“We just have to make a concerted effort to respect the game enough to know that on any given night … you could be hurt by anyone,” Penn coach Jerome Allen said.
Against Brown Jan. 30, the Quakers clamped down on Mullery inside, allowing him to get off just eight shots. But that effort was led by forward Conor Turley, who will now be out for the rest of the season after he injured both of his hands during the Cornell game.
In Turley’s absence, “everyone has to do their part to shut down Matt Mullery,” said Eggleston, who posted 18 points and 9 rebounds in the first game against Brown.
And tonight, Penn (4-17, 3-4 Ivy) will be dealing with an amped up Brown team.
The Bears (8-17, 2-6) left the Pizzitola Center three Saturdays ago with a bad taste in their mouths, after referees ruled that Dan Monckton released his game-winning putback before the buzzer sounded.
“I’m sure they want another shot at us,” Eggleston said. “They definitely could have, or maybe they feel like they should have, won the game.”
The Quakers may feel the same about their Jan. 29 loss to Yale (10-15, 4-4) in their first 2009-10 Ivy game.
With Zack Rosen sidelined at the start of the game due to a team violation, Penn fell behind 17-4 that night but fought back to cut the deficit to eight with four minutes to go.
When they meet the Bulldogs again Saturday, the Quakers will look to avoid one of their dreaded slow starts, which Eggleston attributed to a variety of recurring problems.
“Sometimes it’s just we’re not hitting shots,” Eggleston said. “Sometimes we’re getting taken out of our stuff, and sometimes it’s [a lack of] intensity.”
A 40-minute effort will be necessary to contain Zampier, who dropped 32 points against Harvard last Friday and averages a League-best 17.8 per game.
Defending Zampier remains one of the biggest challenges for Ivy teams this season, but Allen is focused on the long term.
For the interim head coach, the chance to get back over the .500 mark in League play this weekend represents another step in the restoration process.
“Right now, we’re trying to build the program,” Allen said. “Everything associated with winning is not going to transpire overnight.”
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