Ready to move on, M. Hoops prepared for another sweep

Penn is home for two games against mediocre Ivy League teams Harvard and Dartmouth. Forget it and move on. That is the motto the Penn men's basketball team will take into this weekend's games at the Palestra. The Quakers host Dartmouth Friday followed by Harvard Saturday. The sizable wins two weeks ago at Dartmouth (6-16, 3-7 Ivy League) and Harvard (11-11, 4-6) seem like a distant memory since Penn (14-9, 7-2) fell to nationally-ranked Princeton Tuesday night. Although the Quakers had some time to evaluate their performance, they won't enter the back-to-back set with much preparation time on the court. Penn will take the floor against the Big Green with only one day of practice under their belt since the loss at Princeton. It was their only chance to set the team's tone of playing to everyone's strengths. "If we are truly a good basketball team, then everybody's got a job to do," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "Everybody knows their role at this point in the season." The Quakers are now the healthiest they've been all season. According to Dunphy, however, Penn forward Jed Ryan still has a broken shooting hand that will take another three or four weeks to completely heal. Nevertheless, "Ryan wants to play and will get the chance," according to Dunphy. The first half of the weekend features the struggling Big Green, who are only one game ahead of the Ivy League basement. Dartmouth's freshman forward Ian McGinnis comes off career highs in scoring (21 points) and rebounding (14 boards) in last weekend's loss to Columbia. Also chipping in for Dartmouth is sophomore forward Shaun Gee, who leads the team with 48.5 percent shooting from the field. Senior guard P.J. Halas also chimes in from downtown, leading Dartmouth with 37 percent shooting behind the three point arc. On the flipside, five Penn players sport a better three-point shooting percentage than Halas. Despite the mismatch in long-range firepower, the Quakers remain low-key about their expectations. "We know that Harvard and Dartmouth are coming in wanting to beat us, so we need to make sure we run our plays well," Penn guard Matt Langel said. Langel will be one of the players that Harvard should focus on. In the last meeting at Cambridge, Mass., the Moorestown, N.J.-native tore up the Crimson for 32 points, leading Penn to one of their best shooting nights of the season. The Quakers shot 56 percent from the field, their second best game field-goal percentage in 1997-98. The Crimson, however, were without one of their young leaders. The player in question is Harvard rookie forward Dan Clemente. Penn will have to find a way to stop the budding star. After missing three games with an ankle injury, the freshman turned in a career high of 26 points, six three-pointers, six rebounds and two steals in a win last Friday over Cornell en route to Rookie of the Week honors. Junior guard Tim Hill leads the Crimson in scoring at 14.6 points per game. But as of late, junior center Paul Fisher has stepped it up, scoring a career-high 23 against Columbia. With a weekend sweep of Princeton and Penn, Harvard will join the top half of the Ivy League standings, but that is unlikely as neither team has dropped a home game yet this season. The Quakers have the talent to repeat their success from the New England visit. Penn defeated the Crimson and the Big Green by 15 and 14 points, respectively. The results from two weeks ago should be duplicated, provided that the Quakers hold up their end by playing well in their own side of the court. "They're probably not going to change their offense much, and we're not going to be changing our scheme this late in the season," Dunphy said. On paper, the Quakers should beat both squads by larger margins at home. The key, however, is how the team responds to this week's earlier defeat. If Penn doesn't come in mentally prepared, it could become a long weekend. "They're two very good teams who might have been struggling, but we know they have a lot of firepower," Penn forward Paul Romanczuk said. "The opportunity to play basketball at the Palestra is something a lot of teams look forward to, and beating Penn is something to look forward to as well." With Tuesday night's loss at Princeton, the Quakers are all but mathematically eliminated from competition. Penn nevertheless seeks to get back on the winning track this weekend, as a sweep of Dartmouth and Harvard would clinch the Red and Blue an above-.500 record for the season.