Notebook: Countdown to M. Hoops opener: 8 days

Only eight days remain until the Penn men's basketball team opens its 1999-2000 season. The Quakers' first game will be played at Kentucky next Wednesday and will be shown live across the country on ESPN. And you can sense the jubilation in the air. "I don't know if there can be any more excitement than the fact that you're playing Kentucky at Kentucky," senior co-captain Matt Langel said. "It's the Pre-Season NIT with a tournament atmosphere. And then the fact that it's going to be ESPN nationwide just kind of adds a little bit more to that whole mystique of being down there at Kentucky." A majority of Penn's away games this winter will be televised in one capacity or another. DirecTV, CN8 and Comcast SportsNet will show Penn games across the Delaware Valley region, and games with Auburn, Kansas and Penn State will be shown in various parts of the country on ESPN's Regional Coverage. · Need a measuring stick for the competition that the Quakers will face this upcoming season? Try the preseason AP Poll and the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll. Auburn (No. 4 in both polls), Temple (No. 7 in both), Kansas (No. 11 in both) and Kentucky (No. 12 Coaches Poll, No. 14 AP) are all on Penn's schedule. So how does the Quakers' schedule stack up against the rest of the Ivy League? It's on the top. Perennial Ivy co-favorite Princeton has No. 11 Kansas and No. 17 Syracuse on its slate and No. 5 North Carolina is a possible second-round opponent in a December tournament. Columbia, a team which lost all five starters and is predicted to finish in the bottom of the Ivies, may be overmatched in games with No. 10 Duke and No. 13 Stanford. The other five members of the League, however, are slacking in scheduling. Dartmouth, the third-place Ivy finisher last winter, has ACC also-ran Virginia as its toughest opponent. Brown faces cross-city rivals Providence and Rhode Island in its toughest matchups, though neither opponent is expected to finish in the upper half of their leagues. And Harvard's toughest non-league opponents are South Florida and Marist. · And how did Penn place in these polls? Well, the Red and Blue picked up one vote in the Coaches poll -- technically, this means a ranking of No. 56 in the country. After defeating Temple last November, the Quakers peaked in the polls, topping out as the No. 29 team in the nation. The Quakers, however, were shut out by the voters in the preseason AP Poll, which was released yesterday. Princeton, on the other hand, received a single vote. · The '99-00 season will be the first in which the NCAA allows the uniform Nos. 1 and 2 to be worn. In previous years these numbers had been left unused so as to not confuse the game scorekeepers when fouls are signaled by the referees. Penn was quick to take advantage of this new standard -- freshman forwards Ugonna Onyekwe and Koko Archibong took No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, for the upcoming season. Quakers senior co-captain Michael Jordan, of course, remains No. 23. · Temple coach John Chaney, notoriously strict in how he runs his ship, once again instituted 5 a.m. practices for his squad. But this year there is one additional twist -- no jewelry and no facial hair. This move was made by the 18th-year coach at Temple to try to increase team unity and establish control over what may be his strongest team ever. "I don't like to see kids come out with guys having all kind of earrings on and beards and all that on and those corn poles in their hair," Chaney said at the Atlantic 10 preseason media day in Philadelphia last week. "Are you an individual or are you on a team?" Chaney, though, was disappointed that NCAA regulations prevent the school from paying for the removal of tattoos. The 67-year-old coach half-jokingly suggested that Temple should pay for a trip to South Street in order to have the etching surgically removed from his players. All ideas of team-building aside, rebellion would likely occur at Penn if a policy of no facial hair were to be implemented, likely on the part of center Geoff Owens in defense of his new goatee. · Not returning for the 1999-00 campaign is Dartmouth small forward Charles Harris. The sophomore averaged 8.2 points and recorded 33 blocks -- fifth best in the Ivies -- a year ago and was figured to return to his starting role for the Big Green. But Harris chose to focus solely on academics this year. Now, Dartmouth will have to be content with returning only four starters. "I'm sure if you ask the Dartmouth guys, they're disappointed by that. He's a good player, that Charles Harris," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "I don't know who might be the next guy in line, to be honest with you -- we haven't looked that far in advance because we've got a lot of other teams we're preparing for." · New to the Ivy League this fall are Yale coach James Jones and Brown coach Glen Miller. The coaches inherit programs with identical records, as both teams finished 4-22 overall last season and tied for last in the league at 2-12. · The Quakers' first and only preseason scrimmage will take place this Friday at 4 p.m. at the Palestra. Penn will take on a traveling club team, the Nantucket Nectars, composed of former college players. "We're going to do what we always do, and just try to execute our offense the best we can," Dunphy said. "We'll find some different combinations that are going to play during the course of the year and get everybody a lot of work." The team has been hard at work in practice thus far, though several small injuries -- Langel's ankle, Josh Sanger's knee -- have slowed the Quakers at times. Still, even when assorted ailments keep some of Penn's players from joining their teammates in a run across the Palestra floor 16 times at the end of practice -- in a span of 60 seconds no less -- the team will be ready for its first on-court competition. "It's a little bit [of wear and tear]. Some little bumps and bruises, but if we were playing tomorrow, they would play," Dunphy said.

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