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Last year, everything the Quakers built during a trio of league wins crumbled to pieces in a nightmarish week. Penn believes this year will be different.
With each passing game, more and more credence is being lent to the idea that maybe, just maybe, the Quakers have a shot at the Ivy title that has been all but handed to the No. 23 Harvard Crimson.
No Penn player has ever graduated without beating Princeton at the Palestra.
In a 82-67 win Monday night, Quakers seniors Tyler Bernardini and Zack Rosen quickly made sure they didn’t become the first.
It means, rather, that this year, the Tigers are going down. Penn is poised to widen the 122-102 all-time lead, and it starts tonight at the Palestra.
VIDEO: Penn-Princeton Rivalry
But let’s chew on a little more recent history. None of the current Tigers have ever lost at the Palestra, and Princeton has won five straight overall against the Quakers.
Toughening league competition and Princeton’s quirky academic calendar are the two main factors that brought about this year’s Monday night special at the Palestra.
Sydney Johnson had conquered the Ivy League. Yet three weeks later, he stunned the Tigers faithful when he left for Fairfield. His former teammate, Mitch Henderson, was hired as his replacement.
Formed in 1955 to exhibit the city’s hoops prowess, the unofficial conference has since become a staple — not just of Philadelphia, but of college basketball as a whole.
If my team loses more than they win in my presence, I convince myself that I must be cursed. So after witnessing Penn men’s basketball’s two most lopsided losses of the season, I began to worry that I might be bad luck.
Why the heck is this Ivy Leaguer Zack Rosen a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award? National writers can barely spell his name right, and you’d better believe they don’t botch Jardine.
If the Quakers continue to perform with this type of rapid-fire intensity throughout the conference season, composure will be an extremely valuable commodity.
In a nail biter at the Palestra, Penn’s men’s basketball team withstood a furious Red Hawk’s rally to notch their first Big 5 win of the season.
VIDEO: Highlights from the game
Marveling at the inside of the self-proclaimed ‘Cathedral of College Basketball,’ I was rudely awakened from my daydream when my red-and-black plaid Washington Nationals cap was roughly flipped off my head.