A FRONT ROW VIEW: Rivals make Ivies cringe

They are unlikely allies, but together they prove a formidable obstacle for any would-be Ivy League men's basketball contender. Penn and Princeton wear down their Ancient Eight foes Friday nights, then swap their victims for what is surely hell on the hardwood for the opposition the following evening. "You want a dead-man statement?" Harvard coach Frank Sullivan joked after the Crimson endured the first of back-to-back Ivy road whippings. Said Dartmouth coach Dave Faucher with a grin, "Have you ever had your wisdom teeth out??We were struggling coming into the weekend. I didn't think it was exactly the cure for us." The Quakers and Tigers have dominated the league in recent decades, combining to win the Ivy title 28 of the last 31 seasons. This year should be little different, especially considering the results of the first weekend in the Ancient Eight. Penn coasted past the Crimson, 92-76, Friday night at the Palestra, while Princeton feasted on the Big Green, 69-39, at Jadwin Gymnasium. The following evening the New England schools changed venues, but the result was still a pair of losses. It basically knocks them out of Ivy title contention. And it was only the first weekend of league play. Dartmouth was defeated soundly by the Quakers, 71-51, Saturday evening. Princeton easily downed Harvard, 70-47. It was not exactly the way Sullivan and Faucher had hoped the games would unfold. While Dartmouth has struggled since the loss of Crawford Palmer, the Crimson is much-improved and has high expectations for this season. Harvard is already just one win short of last season's paltry total of six. With 11 Ivy games left, the Crimson should easily surpass its 1992-93 mark. It probably won't happen on the road though. Home teams have long dominated in the Ivies. Throw out Penn, which steamrolled over its opponents last season, and the home team was 28-14 in Ivy games. That's despite a large imbalance in power between the upper- and lower-tier teams. The road trips in the Ivy League are horrible -- long bus odysseys, games on back-to-back nights, and as Sullivan said, "the food." Be it Harvard-Dartmouth, Brown-Yale or Columbia-Cornell, they all are rather dreadful. But the weekend trek Penn and Princeton don't have to make -- to Penn and Princeton -- is by far the worst. "Each team presents you with different challenges," Sullivan said. "I think you could go up and play Brown and Yale and say, 'It's pretty much the same kind of basketball.' Or Cornell and Columbia. Even to some degree Harvard and Dartmouth. But the tough thing is that between Princeton and Penn you see two different things that you need to prepare for." In Penn, opponents face a team with great speed and aggressiveness on both ends of the floor. In contrast, Princeton is oh-so deliberate, hence the ancient in Ancient Eight. But even though the Tigers don't have the athletic prowess of the Quakers, you would be hard-pressed to find many coaches looking forward to the game against the Tigers. "It seems with Penn, you've got to really prepare for the athletic ability, the knowledge of the players and the individual moves," Sullivan said. "For Princeton, you can't concentrate on individual players because you have to spend so much time concentrating on five-man basketball. It's two different games." This is Faucher's tenth season with the Hanover, N.H., squad, and the Big Green is a woeful 1-19 on the trip during that span. Harvard has fared slightly better during that time, posting a 7-13 mark. "Princeton can really wear you out mentally by the nature of their offense and the things that they do," Sullivan said. "Given the nature of these two teams, it's clearly the biggest weekend challenge in the Ivy League." Rest assured, Penn and Princeton will be the two schools vying for the Ivy League title. Their combined one-two punch to visiting Ancient Eight schools will guarantee it. Adam Rubin is a Wharton junior from Bellmore, N.Y., and Sports Editor-elect of The Daily Pennsylvanian.