M. Hoops teaches two New York foes a lesson

The Penn men's basketball team improved to 4-0 in Ivy play with a weekend road sweep of Cornell and Columbia. Nine games in January. Nine wins. Heading into the second month of 1999, the Penn men's basketball team is still undefeated this calendar year. This past weekend, the Quakers (12-3, 4-0 Ivy League) traveled through New York State and came home with two more league victories. On Friday night, Penn disposed of Cornell (6-12, 1-5), 86-62, before heading southeast to beat Columbia (7-11, 2-4), 67-51, the following evening. Cornell had beaten Penn in Ithaca each of the past two seasons but the Quakers made sure the Big Red did not extend that streak to three. "It was definitely in our minds. Mike [Jordan] and I were 0-2 there, and Paul [Romanczuk] and Jed [Ryan] had lost two straight," guard Matt Langel said. "Those guys certainly thought they could beat us, and we wanted to prove otherwise." Jordan, who scored the Quakers' first five points, led the attack from the start -- scoring 10 first-half points on his way to a team-high 17 points. Friday night also marked the resurgence of senior forward Jed Ryan, who had been struggling from the outside in recent games. Ryan buried his first two three-point attempts and shot 5-of-8 from the field on the night, ending the game with 13 points. "[Jed] had a great weekend shooting the ball. He got us off to a great start against Cornell," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "He understands that's part of his job, his role on this team -- to not only make shots, but more importantly, to get them and be very much a threat for our offensive game-plan." The Quakers led 41-32 at the half but they were just getting started. They scored the first 10 points of the second half and cruised the rest of the way. "We went on a big run, and I think we got some good rest towards the end of that [Cornell] game, and it paid off in the Columbia game," Langel said. The rest the Quakers received certainly did seem to pay off in Saturday night's game against the Lions. Five Penn players scored in double figures on Saturday, led by Ryan's 14. But surprisingly, the only Penn starter who did not reach double digits in scoring was Jordan, as he shot just 1-of-9 from the field against Columbia. Although Jordan did score eight points on the strength of 6-of-6 shooting from the free throw line, on this night the Quakers did not need a huge contribution from the junior tri-captain, as the other four starters and reserve guard Lamar Plummer were very effective against the Lions. "We had balanced scoring, and that's great," Jordan said. "That will help us out in the long run, so teams can't think that if they take me out of the game, they're going to win. We showed that against Columbia." One of the biggest contributions this weekend came from center Geoff Owens. Owens shot 5-of-6 from the field against the Lions, scoring 12 points and pulling down 14 rebounds. Owens' strong showing was highlighted by a few key plays. The first one came with time running out in the first half and Columbia forward Justin Namolik driving the lane. Owens rejected the shot, swatting the ball into the waiting hands of Romanczuk. Romanczuk then hit a streaking Langel, who made a breakaway layup as the buzzer sounded. Penn went into the locker room with both the scoreboard and the control of the game in its favor. "It was a terrific play," Dunphy said. "[Owens] was a little out of position, in all honesty, just before he made the block, but he got himself back into position and made a terrific block. I think it gave us a lot of momentum going into the second half." In the second half, Owens continued his exceptional play. "I think the most pleasing thing for us over the weekend was in the second half of the Columbia game," Dunphy said. "Geoff Owens really took the game over for a stretch, got a lot of rebounds and a couple of very emotional baskets." Although Owens and the Quakers played well for most of the second half, forward Frank Brown added one negative note to the game when he drew a technical foul. After missing a jumpshot, Brown went in for the offensive rebound and was elbowed in the head. Brown reacted by pushing the opposing player before spending most of the rest of the game on the bench. "Frank's not a guy that that happens to often," Dunphy said. "We took him out of the game, which we typically do to anyone who gets in that situation." Despite Brown's technical, Penn dominated the Lions on Saturday night, as they did against Cornell the night before, to close out an impressive Ivy road weekend. "We were happy to keep ourselves on a roll," Owens said. "We won both games pretty handily, so that was something we were happy to do."

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