High-flying W. Hoops to entertain N.Y. Ivies

Penn hopes to emerge from its first Ivy weekend at 3-0 in league play. The Penn women's basketball team does not have a long history of Ivy League success. The Quakers have compiled sub-.500 all-time records against four of their seven league opponents. A 13-33 all-time record versus Princeton. Twelve wins to 29 losses against Dartmouth. A 15-27 showing in games with Harvard. Against Brown, the Quakers are 19-25. And Yale, meanwhile, has played Penn even to a tune of 24-24. At first glance, these are depressing statistics. But right now, no one in or around the Palestra is thinking about history. Off to their best start ever, the Quakers are 10-5 as they prepare to enter the heart of their Ivy schedule. The Quakers (1-0 Ivy League) plunge headlong into the Ancient Eight season this weekend, matching up with Columbia tonight (7 p.m. at the Palestra) before meeting Cornell tomorrow night. "The Ivy League stickers went down on the floor [last night], so I'm really anxious to get started," said first-year Penn coach Kelly Greenberg, who has been instrumental in the Quakers' newfound success. Junior forward Diana Caramanico and senior guard Mandy West lead the Red and Blue's charge from the gates. The tandem stands 1-2 in the league's overall scoring race, with averages of 25.7 and 18.1 points per game, respectively. "Everyone's really excited," said West, who was recently named Big 5 Player of the Week. "It's like a whole other season." This "other season" begins this weekend and occupies every Friday and Saturday for the next month and a half. Greenberg, as a first-time Ivy League head coach, has never experienced this type of weekend conference schedule -- which can be strenuous at best and grueling at worst. "As a new staff in the conference, we're really excited," Greenberg said. "We've heard about the whole back-to-back thing from the men's staff." Greenberg's players -- the veterans, at least -- have more personal experience with this type of schedule. "It's not really that big a deal," West said. "I'm not a huge fan of back-to-back, especially if the Friday night game was hard, because then you might have to dig a little deeper and rally. I can't really say that it's not fair, because everybody's got the same schedule." Greenberg feels that she and her coaching staff will be challenged this weekend as Penn faces two teams who play very different styles of basketball. The Lions (2-11, 1-1), according to Greenberg, will "press the entire game." Much like their hosts at the Palestra, Columbia tries to get a lot of their points in transition. Cornell (9-5, 1-1), meanwhile, plays at a much slower pace with a "very good half-court game." "Cornell is very wide and strong," Greenberg said. "They don't look to press or run a whole lot. They don't have any stars, just a lot of good solid players." The fact that the Lions and Big Red play opposite styles of basketball, is the very reason that Greenberg is excited for her inaugural Ivy League weekend. "I'm actually glad, because as a coaching staff, we need to be able to make adjustments," Greenberg said. "Playing at home is a good time to test it out." While Penn and Cornell have nearly identical winning records, Columbia is a seemingly abysmal nine games below .500. However, Greenberg vowed not to overlook the Lions, especially when considering their 12-point besting of the Big Red only six days ago. "[Columbia] just beat Cornell last weekend, and they beat a Manhattan team that was undefeated at the time," Greenberg said. "Both these teams are better than I thought, just watching them on tape. "Sometimes [teams with poor records] are the scarier teams," said Greenberg. "Especially after seeing the video, [Columbia's] record is really deceiving." With Greenberg at the helm this year, though, Penn takes nothing for granted and no team lightly. It is an attitude that the Quakers hope will leave them at 3-0 atop the Ivy League when the weekend is over.