M. Hoops heads to New York

Iona coach Jeff Ruland may be taking the ECAC Holiday Festival a little bit personally. In 1979, Ruland was a sophomore All-American center for the team he now coaches. But in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the Jim Valvano-coached Gaels got dumped at the Big Dance by a Cinderella -- the Penn Quakers. So now, as coach, he hopes to exact his revenge when Iona (3-4) squares off against Penn (2-2) in the second game of the Holiday Festival, December 26 at 3 p.m. at Madison Square Garden. "It's a bit of a grudge match," Ruland said. "It was disappointing, but also rewarding knowing the team that beat us went to the Final Four." Ruland will spend his holiday season getting his struggling Gaels ready to play. After Iona opened the season with a win in Hawaii, the Gaels faltered, dropping four of their last six games. "It seems like since we got off the plane from Hawaii, we haven't made a shot," Ruland said. Iona needs big games out of returning MAAC player of the year Kashif Hameed, who is averaging 15.6 points and 7.6 rebounds per game, and forward Ivo Kresta, who is netting 14 points per game. Iona will have two opportunities to tune up, one tonight against St. Francis and the other on Sunday against Morgan State, but the Quakers will have had 14 days rest by the time they head to the Big Apple. That's a long time to think about the embarrassing 71-55 defeat at the hands of Penn State. "We've only played four games in a month," senior forward Jed Ryan said. "I think what happens in that 10 days before the game, you start to lose concentration and focus. By the time the game came, we just weren't ready to play. "We have 14 days until our next game, so we have to try harder this time." Penn will work on keeping its focus and avoiding a second-half letdown, which plagued the Quakers in their losses against Kansas and Penn State. "We need to work on not having any lapses," Ryan said. "We started off pretty well against Penn State, doing all right. But there's a five, six minute period there where all hell breaks loose and we just kind of lost it. "I think we have to be more mentally prepared." If the Quakers get by the Gaels, they will face the winner of the first game of the Festival -- Georgia Tech (6-1) versus Hofstra (4-4). If the heavily favored Yellow Jackets and the Quakers square off on the second day of competition, Penn center Geoff Owens may face yet another test from one of the nation's best big men. Having already faced Kansas' Eric Chenowith, Temple's Lamont Barnes and Penn State's Calvin Booth, Owens will have to match up with Tech's Jason Collier, who is averaging 22 points, 11 rebounds and five blocks per game. But Owens remains undaunted. "I've seen some of the best big guys in the country already," Owens said. "There's nothing that [anyone] is going to bring differently. I'm just going to go into the game knowing that I can play with him." After the Holiday Festival, Penn heads to Lafayette, which stands second in the Patriot League, posting a 6-2 record overall. The Quakers are careful not to look past Lafayette to the impending Ivy League season. "We know that's going to be a war," Owens said of Lafayette, who drubbed Princeton 63-47 earlier this year. To cap off a busy winter holiday, the Quakers host Yale and Brown on January 8 and 9, respectively, to open Ivy League play. Although the Ivy competition is not as elite as Temple or Kansas, Owens believes it is every bit as fierce. "It's going to be even more intense because we know they're coming after us," Owens said. "That's our ticket to the Tournament -- winning those games."

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