Rookie-of-the-week-off

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When my colleague Ari Seifter celebrated what was quantifiably one of the best fall sports seasons for Penn on record, he mentioned that the success was in part due to several freshman stepping up into big roles just days or weeks into their college careers.

As we approach the mid-point in the basketball season, both the men's and women's teams have their own freshman standouts in Miles Cartwright and Alyssa Baron.

With the announcement this week that Baron earned Ivy Rookie of the Week yet again, she is now even with Cartwright — they both have three of the awards on the season (his last came after the victory at Delaware). In the women's victory over St. Francis, Baron had a career-high 23 points, five rebounds, three assists, two steals and no turnovers.

So far, Cartwright is averaging 11.9 points in 29 minutes per game. He's tallied 25 assists to 23 turnovers with 18 rebounds. He's shooting .466 from the floor, .386 from three, and .842 from the line (team-best aside from Dau Jok, who has made all two of his attempts). He leads the men in steals with 18. Cartwright is 15th in the Ivies in scoring, tied for second in steals, and in the top 10 in FG and FT percentages.

Baron leads the women in scoring with 15.7 ppg, as well as minutes (32.7). She averages 4.1 rebounds per game, and has 9 steals and 21 turnovers. Her shooting line is .370/.382/.612 (FG/3FG/FT). She ranks second in the league in scoring (though #1 Niveen Rasheen of Princeton recently suffered a season ending ACL tear) and is fourth in minutes played.

So the question for the second half of the season is: who will rack up more ROTWs by the time spring rolls around? And will Cartwright, Baron or both be Rookie of the Year when the curtain closes on the 2010-11 season?