M. Hoops takes two wins in Ivy weekend at the Palestra

Going into this weekend, the Penn men's basketball team knew that in order for it to stay in the hunt for an Ivy League title, things would have to go right. They did. Friday night against Dartmouth and Saturday night against Harvard, the Quakers found themselves taking the right shots, grabbing the right rebounds and playing the right defense. And after 80 minutes of basketball, Penn had itself the right results, an 88-75 victory over the Big Green and a 95-79 win over Harvard. Unlike its last meeting with Dartmouth, Penn was unable to get an early lead and coast to an easy victory. And unlike its last meeting with Harvard, the Quakers were unable to get an early lead to let slip away for a heartbreaking loss. Penn relied on short, second-half scoring spurts to break both games open. The most crucial of these scoring spurts came Saturday night against the Crimson (8-13, 3-6 Ivies), when the game was tied at 51 with 16:28 remaining in the game. Four minutes, and one Perry Bromwell slam-dunk later, Penn was sitting on top of a 63-53 lead -- one which it never even came close to relinquishing. "Everyone was involved," Bromwell said. "We put 'em down defensively, and we just put in an intense team effort." Bromwell led the way on offense. The senior guard finished the night with a career-high 32 points, including two three-point shots. "Perry just did a super job," Penn head coach Tom Schneider said. "He gave us the leadership we needed on the floor, and he gave us the scoring and the defense, too." Bromwell's defense, as well as an all-around team effort defensively, was what led to the Quakers scoring. And once the Quakers turned up their defense in the second half, they were not to be stopped. "We wanted to play a fast-paced game," Harvard head coach Peter Roby said. "Unfortunately, so did Penn. It came down to who could execute the game plan better, and we ended up playing up to their strength." The Quakers also relied on second half strength Friday night to beat the Big Green (12-8, 4-5 Ivies). Penn found itself on top, 62-61, with 6:33 left in the game when it decided to open the game up a little. A 10-0 run put the Quakers ahead to stay. At one point, Penn scored on 14 straight possessions to really put the Big Green away. "It was a real business-like type of win," Schneider said. "We did exactly what we had to do." Early in the game, Dartmouth forward Jim Barton and the Big Green got off to a 10-2 lead as Penn's shots just didn't seem to want to fall. But once Perry and the Quakers had Barton shut down, it was time for Penn to turn up its offense, as the team racked up a 57.1 shooting percentage in the second half. It seemed Bromwell had no trouble fighting off whatever opposition he faced this weekend. "Perry's a great player," Harvard's Keith Webster added, "And when we let up on defense, we had trouble on him. We just can't always let a player like that go to town on us." But this weekend, Bromwell and the rest of the Quakers went to town.