Quakers sweep Big Red, Lions

Penn's Ivy win streakPenn's Ivy win streakextended to 48 in a row When Cornell men's basketball coach Al Walker walked into the Palestra Friday night, he wanted to make history. The Big Red wanted to be the team to snap The Streak, Penn's string of Ivy League victories, which then stood at 46 straight. "It's a great challenge to come in and have a chance to knock the kings off the mountain," Walker said. "We tried to make our history." They failed. The Quakers destroyed Cornell, 77-63. Columbia, whose upstart football team upset Penn October 7, could not pull off a similar miracle on the Palestra hardwood. The Lions fell easily, 74-50 Saturday. "They're winners," Columbia coach Armond Hill said. "It's no surprise they're still winning." Both Cornell (2-3, 6-10) and Columbia (0-6 Ivy League, 4-14 overall) underestimated the abilities of the decimated Penn bench. With a rotation of only an eight-man rotation, both opposing coaches expected to be able to run and press the Quakers into exhaustion. According to Walker, forwards Frankie Brown and Cedric Laster, who contributed 14 points between them, came "from out of nowhere." "We specifically told our kids there's nobody else who's going to hurt us," Walker said. "They really stepped up big." The Quakers (5-0, 9-6) particularly needed that contribution this weekend. Guard Garett Kreitz, the Quakers' leading three-point shooter (.388 percent) going into this weekend, was a surprising non-factor, chipping in five points Friday and only two Saturday. Hill gave credit to Columbia guard C.J. Thompkins, who turned in a strong defensive performance against Kreitz. Thompkins, who has established himself as a top scorer for the Lions with 14 points per game, turned in only three against the Quakers. Thompkins' poor shooting performance was representative of the entire Columbia squad. The Quakers, while not on top of their shooting game, were more than twice as accurate as the Lions in the first half, shooting 42.9 percent (48.1 percent for the game) to Columbia's 18.8 percent. Penn center Tim Krug's presence may have accounted for at least part of the Lions' shooting woes. The senior broke his own school record against Columbia by blocking seven shots. The Quakers capitalized on the Lions' offensive ineptitude midway through the first half. Penn went on an eight minute, 21 second scoring run, turning a one-point deficit into a 16-point lead during that span. And the Quakers did not look back. Swingman Ira Bowman and Krug led the Quakers in scoring, with 22 points each against Columbia. Though Bowman was credited with only two steals and a couple of slam dunks on the weekend, he seemed to be able to change the tempo of the game almost singlehandedly. "I got in the habit of coming to the ball, clearly not showing trust in my companions in the back court," Bowman said. "From now on, I'll work on playing without the ball." Bowman also keyed the Penn defense, which easily contained the younger Cornell squad Friday. The Big Red seemed to have only one play -- feed the ball inside to power forward Eddie Samuel and get out of the way. That was successful for a while, as Samuel racked up 25 points, leading all scorers. "I got in the zone a couple of times, but never for that long," Samuel said. "I had spurts when I felt like I couldn't miss." Krug had trouble early on against Cornell, when he was outplayed by the quicker Samuel. Krug ran into foul trouble early against the 6-foot-5 Samuel and was relegated to the bench for the final 6 minutes, 33 seconds of the first half. "I struggled a little bit in the first half defensively," Krug said. "[Samuel] got a lot of good positions. In the second half, I tried to get around in front of him more. He did a lot of cutting, flashing the lane, and I would step in and try to block that off. I did a better job in the second half." When Krug and forward Paul Romanczuk shut down the lane midway through the first half, the Big Red had to switch to a perimeter offense -- with little success. Cornell hit only 4-of-16 attempts (25 percent) from beyond the arc. Even though their opponents have been stuck in the Ivy cellar, Penn did not play down to that level. And, thanks to all those missed shots, Columbia and Cornell also missed a chance at national basketball headlines. "We thought if we played as well as we could, we'd have a shot," Walker said. "We didn't play as well as we could, but we played pretty well." But against the Quakers, winners of 48 straight Ivy League games, pretty well just isn't good enough.