Ricketts looks to give M. Hoops second nightmare

Yale senior guard Matt Ricketts made a crucial steal in an Elis' upset win over the Quakers in New Haven. On January 10, the Penn men's basketball team rolled into New Haven looking to down the Elis for its second-straight win to start the 1998 Ivy League season. The Penn faithful fully expected to see their team close out winter break with a victory at 4-8 Yale. Elis guard Matt Ricketts, however, had no plans of watching his team fold. The Quakers closed out 1997 with a hellish December schedule. A five-game losing streak, which included losses to nationally-recognized powers George Washington, Kansas and Rhode Island, ended with the changing year and a solid beating of Brown. Against the Quakers, Ricketts pumped in a career-high 23 points, including Yale's final five points in regulation, to lead the Elis to an upset 71-70 overtime victory. The 6'3" shooting guard also shut down Quakers senior co-captain Garret Kreitz, holding the Penn guard to a mere six points. With 18 seconds remaining, Ricketts stripped the ball from Kreitz -- and the lead from Penn -- taking it in for a layup to send the game into overtime. "The Penn game is the best game I've ever played in college," Ricketts told the Yale Daily News. Ricketts was unavailable for comment yesterday. In just his fifth start of the season, Ricketts nailed 6-of-9 three-pointers as Yale pulled out the win. The Elis won despite missing injured starting guard Gabe Hunterton and losing captain Emerson Whitley, who fouled out with 6:38 remaining. "Well, we certainly didn't do a good job on Matt," said Quakers coach Fran Dunphy. "I thought he played very well." The victory marked the establishment of Ricketts as more than a mere cog in the Yale offensive machine. Later that week, Ricketts made all 14 free throws in scoring 19 points at St. Francis (N.Y.). The solid performances earned the senior his first ever Ivy League Player of the Week honors. "He's always been capable of it. He's playing very well right now," said 12-year Yale coach Dick Kuchen. Ricketts has reemerged as a Yale starter after a difficult year. As a sophomore, he started 20 games while leading the Elis in three-pointers and finishing third in scoring. Last year, though, Ricketts was plagued by a back injury that caused him to miss six games. The Sturgis, Ky., native shot just 32.6 percent from the field and found himself on the bench entering the 1997-98 season. One of the lone bright spots for Ricketts last year was his selection to the Academic All-Ivy Team. "Matt has distinguished himself academically," Elis coach Dick Kuchen (145 victories at the Yale helm) said. Ricketts reemerged this season in a December 10 game against Vermont. In the Elis' overtime victory, Ricketts came off the bench to score 14 points in 44 minutes. He won back his starting job and has since averaged 12.5 points per game. Heading into the contest against Vermont, Yale had won a mere five of its previous 38 games dating back to 1996. Since then, Ricketts has led Yale to a 9-4 record in its last 13 games. The Elis (10-10, 5-3 Ivy) are looking to finish at .500 for the first time since 1991-92. Ricketts matched his Penn mark of 23 points in a loss at Columbia last Friday and responded the following night with a 22-point performance in a victory over Cornell. In eight Ivy League games this year, Ricketts has burned Ancient Eight opponents. In those games, he has averaged 15.6 points while knocking down 48.8 percent of his threes. Ricketts has always been a sharpshooter, owning Yale's seventh all-time mark with 90 career three-pointers. He is also hitting an impressive 87.1 percent of his free throws this year. "Free-throw shooting is mostly mental," Ricketts told the Yale Daily News. "Over Christmas, my dad was saying that the least I could do as a Division I basketball player was to make my free throws." Despite the Elis' hardwood troubles in recent years, they have owned the Quakers number. Yale has pulled out three close victories over Penn since 1996. Ricketts and his teammates will be gunning for another Yale victory when they tip off at the Palestra Friday night against Fran Dunphy's Quakers. "We're not going to change a lot [against Yale]," Dunphy said. "We're not a real trickery kind of team. We'll try to do a good job with man-to-man defense, hopefully, and we'll concentrate on a guy like Ricketts, and on Emerson Whitley [Yale captain, 16.8 points per game]."

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