Elis, Bears eyeing upset of M. Hoops

The Quakers hope to stave off upstarts Yale and Brown on this weekend's New England swing. When you're an Ivy League basketball player, the last two teams you probably want to face during the same weekend are Penn and Princeton. That is, unless you're a Yale Eli. Yale has managed to beat one of the preeminent Ivy powerhouses every season since 1995-96. And few can forget what kept fans on the edge of their seats during Penn's 73-57 blowout win at Brown last season. It wasn't the on-court action in Rhode Island, but the regular updates from New Haven blaring on the PA as the 1-7 Elis took down the undefeated Princeton Tigers. The year before that, Yale performed a similar feat -- a one-point victory in overtime to hand the Quakers their first Ivy loss of the season. After grabbing its first Big 5 win of the season against St. Joe's last Monday, Penn takes its show on the road tonight, and its first stop is John J. Lee Amphitheater in New Haven, Conn., where both of these shockers took place. "They have snuck up on us in the past, and they've done it to us a few times in my years here," Penn senior Matt Langel said. "We're making that an issue and trying to be as prepared as we can to go up there and win the basketball game." But if the past few games are any indication, Yale might not need luck or surprise attacks to challenge Penn this season. The upstart Elis are 3-1 in the league with wins over Harvard, Brown and Dartmouth. Since Yale is led by new coach James Jones, Penn center Geoff Owens thinks the Elis might have a different attitude going into tonight's contest. "I think they're going to come out hungry," Owens said. "They're not going to come out with a fear or respect for us, they're going to come out expecting to beat us." When describing his team, Jones voiced this expectation. "I really believe that if we go out and give ourselves a chance to win in terms of not turning the ball over and taking care of it and making good decisions, we'll have an opportunity," the first-year coach said. "That's really what you look for, and that's why you go out and play the games." One player the Quakers will have to neutralize if they hope to have their way with the Elis is center Neal Yanke. The junior leads the team in rebounding at eight per game, and his 10 points per outing is good for third among the Elis' scoring leaders. After watching game films of the talented junior, Penn's Oggie Kapetanovic pretty much summed up what the Quakers might see tonight. "He can go off," Kapetanovic said. "He's very athletic and he plays hard." Yanke certainly went off in Yale's last game against Brown. The center scored 29 points on 12-of-19 shooting and also pulled down 13 rebounds. The last time the Quakers journeyed to New Haven, Yanke was the only Eli to score in double figures, contributing 14 of his team's 50 points. "Last year he hurt me a lot with his jump hook, so I'm going to have to respect that," Penn center Geoff Owens said. "Hopefully, I can keep him off the offensive board and not give him a lot of touches." Owens is expecting to guard Yanke, but not without a little help from his friends. "I think its mostly on me, but I'm sure if I front him a little bit then I'll get some help on the back side," he said. Offensively, the Quakers will try to continue the strategy that helped them defeat St. Joe's last Monday. In that game, many of Penn's second-half points came well inside the paint. "Certainly key to what we do is to get it inside and out," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Whether it's feeding it down there to our post position players or it's our perimeter guys making penetration." Kapetanovic said the win against St. Joe's was important for more than just an offensive tuneup, though. "We needed [the St. Joe's] win. It was a Big 5 win, and it made four in a row," Kapetanovic said. "It's a great way to go on the road, because road games are never easy, especially the second day when you're tired and wary and you basically want to win and go home." For Kapetanovic, such anxieties might be particularly pronounced when the Quakers reach their second destination. The reserve center left Brown in 1997 to join the Red and Blue. He played 51 games in a Bears uniform and started 30 of them. But Kapetanovic said he will not be thinking about his history at Brown when he takes the court on Saturday. "I don't feel like I'm going back there to show them that I can play or anything. The right people up there know why I made this decision, the people who meant something to me, so they know why I did it. I don't have anything to prove. It's just another game going in there trying to do what we do here, which is win," he said. According to Penn guard Matt Langel, one way to accomplish that in Providence is to exploit the Bears' still-evolving, youthful lineup. Four of their starters are underclassmen. "It looks like Brown is playing a lot of younger guys, mixed in with just a few veterans," Langel said. "And it looks like they're running a lot of guys in and out of the game." But judging by the statistics, Brown's youngest players deserve to be fixtures in the lineup. Earl Hunt is averaging 31 minutes per contest, which is time enough for him to score 17.1 points per game. His classmate, Alaivaa Nuualiitia, is averaging 13.7 points in 27.3 minutes of action. So if this young duo poses a challenge to Penn tomorrow, it should come as little surprise to the Quakers. "What [Hunt] brings that is difficult for us is that he just has a knack for scoring and can get himself to the foul line," Dunphy said. "Alaivaa [Nuualiitia] just keeps coming at you. He only may be 6' 6" or 6'6 1/2", but he plays a lot bigger than that. "So both of those guys are making an impact as a freshman, and I'm very impressed with how they've started their freshmen years."

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