COLUMN: Simply too many weapons

The fifth-year Columbia coach has spent the last half-decade looking up at Fran Dunphy's squad near the top of the standings. And before that, the '76 Princeton graduate fought tooth-and-nail against the Quakers both as a player and later as an assistant to Pete Carril at Old Nassau for four seasons. Still, after the Quakers wiped the Palestra floor with his Lions in Saturday's 81-58 win, Hill was crystal clear on his opinion of Penn's chances in the Ivy League title race. "You need three refs on your side," Hill said when asked what it would take for an Ivy team to defeat Penn. "I don't know if anybody can. They have it inside and outside; they shoot; and they look for each other. Penn-Princeton is a good matchup, but I don't think anybody is going to beat them twice." Hill is dead on. The Quakers, if they have a subpar night, may very well drop their second showdown with the Tigers at the Palestra on March 7. But as this past weekend resoundingly demonstrated, this Penn squad just has too many weapons to relinquish its two-game league advantage. That's not to say a disaster may not loom on the horizon. Rather, it's saying that a Penn loss to any of the other Ivy teams would be about as shocking as Wile E. Coyote catching Road Runner. The Quakers, who now stand 9-0 in the Ivies for the first time since 1994-95 and the days of a 48-game Ivy winning streak, are bigger, faster and stronger than any other squad in the league, so even when their marksmen are shooting blanks, the Red and Blue have the ability to do what it takes to win. This past Friday's 73-63 victory over Cornell was a perfect indicator of the Quakers' ability to find a way to prevail -- even if they don't look like the prettiest team around. Against a measly contingent of Ithaca gorge-lovers that has managed just one Ivy win all season, the Red and Blue's outside shooters were positively putrid. The Quakers couldn't hit the water from the beach on Saturday night, as they were 21.1 percent from beyond the arc on 4-of-19 shooting. It wasn't as if Penn was having its way down low, either. The frontcourt combination of center Geoff Owens and forward Ugonna Onyekwe did combine for 14 first-half points, but the undersized Big Red were playing solid defense in the halfcourt. "They did a pretty good job of fronting us, and we got a little stagnant without the ball," Owens said after the game. So if they weren't shooting well and if they weren't playing well on the post, what was it that helped the Quakers win besides the lackluster play of the Big Red? Since the bread and butter of the Penn offense was having problems against Cornell, it was the success of the Quakers' transition game that paved the way for the Penn win. "That was probably one of our best games in transition in a long while," Dunphy said. "It's something we try to work on, but something we don't usually wind up having." When you think of Penn, you don't immediately think of rebound-and-run basketball, and it wasn't as if the Quakers turned into one of Paul Westhead's run-and-gun Loyola Marymount squads in a matter of minutes. Instead, what Penn's improved transition play indicates is just how versatile this squad is. When the shots are falling, the Penn halfcourt offense looks as it should, but what's special about this version of the Red and Blue is that their personnel can add a different look when it needs to. Just to give you an idea of the uniqueness of these Quakers, in the first half against Cornell, Penn had a total of 12 field goals, and four of those were slam dunks. That means that fully 33 percent of the Penn offense came from above the rim in the first session -- a feat virtually unheard of in the world of Ivy League basketball. Three of those dunks came from Onyekwe, who obviously brings an added sizzle to the Penn five. The Quakers' athleticism and strength also helped the solid rebounding that was integral to the transition game that they sported against the Big Red. Penn outboarded Cornell, 22-14, in the first 20 minutes. Vital to the Penn offense against Cornell was the play of Michael Jordan, who in addition to scoring a team-high 21 points, tied his career high with nine assists. The Penn co-captain's floor game was masterful on Friday, but it was no more impressive than the job that Matt Langel, Penn's other co-captain, did the following night against Columbia. Langel had nine points but, more importantly, notched a career-high eight assists that helped to ignite a transition game that was once again potent against the Lions. The Penn senior did a fine job of finding the open man on Saturday, but his clutch passing was in somewhat less demand than Jordan's was on the previous night on account of Penn's awe-inspiring shooting throughout most of the game. Whereas the Quakers shot 21 percent from three-point land against Cornell, they were stirring from downtown against the Lions, shooting 53.3 percent. Even more impressive was Penn's shooting from the field in general in the second stanza. The Red and Blue went 17-for-26 after the break for a 65-percent clip, and they were as hot as 74 percent at one point. Friday and Saturday were a bit like night and day for Penn. Against Cornell, shots wouldn't fall from the outside, and against Columbia, it seemed like every Quaker was Jimmy Chitwood in Hoosiers. When the Quakers are hitting, they're invincible, and when they're missing, they're still too tough for the rest of the Ivy League.

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