Crimson and Green look to upset M. Hoops

The league-leading Quakers host their first Ivy games of the year after going 4-0 on the road. The Penn men's basketball team has looked like a gaggle of supermen lately -- winners of six straight, the Quakers have been blowing away their opponents faster than a speeding bullet. After racing out to halftime leads of 31-13 against Yale and 41-21 versus Brown last weekend en route to a pair of blowout wins, Penn (11-7, 4-0 Ivy League) appears to have found its stride just in time for its first Ivy homestand of the season. The league-leading Quakers host Harvard (8-11, 3-3) at 7 p.m. tonight and Dartmouth (6-13, 2-4) at the same time tomorrow. In four Ivy games this winter, the Quakers have come out victorious by an average of 22 points, allowing their opposition a sickeningly low 42 points per contest. Both the Crimson and the Big Green are well aware of Penn's recent success, though, and are preparing to stage a coup d'_tat to upend a streaking Quakers squad. "One thing about Penn is that it plays this amazing pre-Ivy League schedule, and they think they can come in and just kick our butts," said Harvard forward Dan Clemente, who noted the confidence the Crimson have taken from their narrow 81-76 loss to Penn last February. "So basically, we have to show ourselves in the first couple of minutes and establish that we can play with these guys and then take it from there." In the last few weeks, though, the first few minutes of play have been all Quakers. And defense has clearly emerged as one of Penn's strong points during this stretch, particularly in the paint. Freshman forward Ugonna Onyekwe recorded a total of nine blocks against the likes of Columbia, Cornell, Yale and Brown, so it figures that against fellow Ivy also-rans Harvard and Dartmouth, he will remain a force inside. "I think our defense has been solid the last couple of games, and we've just been feeding off of that," Penn guard Michael Jordan said. "Ugonna and [Geoff] Owens have been changing a lot of shots. And I think our perimeter defense is stepping up also. Our three-point percentage defensively has gone down -- we're not going out and giving those teams those wide open shots, we're making them work for everything. "And if they do penetrate to get past our perimeter guys, then we have Owens and Ugonna back there changing shots and misdirecting them." Onyekwe, however, will draw the unenviable task of defending two of the Ivies' most prolific scorers in the Crimson's Clemente and the Big Green's Shaun Gee. Clemente -- who Penn coach Fran Dunphy said "could wake up in the middle of the night and make a shot" -- netted 48 points in two games last weekend in his return from a two-month layoff due to eye surgery. And Gee is no slacker himself, averaging 18.7 points per game while firing at a 47 percent clip from the field. "If we can contain [Clemente and Gee], that takes away a lot of their scoring opportunities," Onyekwe said. "Those are the guys that they look for and play through. So it'll be a challenge for me to do as good of a job as I can defensively." Though both visiting squads have loads of individual talent, neither has put it all together yet this season. With Clemente on the sideline recuperating from eye surgery, Harvard struggled to a meager 4-7 mark. The Crimson's 6'8" center, Tim Coleman, will present a challenge inside, however, as he pulls in 8.2 rebounds to go with 13.4 points per contest. And though the Big Green returned four starters from a team that went 10-4 in Ivy play last winter, they found themselves in the midst of a 1-9 tailspin before picking up a pair of Ivy victories at home last weekend. In a 73-66 victory over Cornell last Saturday, Dartmouth junior guard Greg Buth led all scorers with 27 points. The sharpshooter who drove fear into the league last season, though, has been indicative of the Big Green as a whole -- hitting for only 29 percent of his three-pointers this season. "They were slated early to be one of the top teams contending for the title, but they slipped a little bit. I don't know why," Jordan said of the struggling Dartmouth squad. "Maybe because they did lose a guy [small forward Charles Harris] who was slated to get a lot of minutes, and maybe that could be it, but I don't know. I have no idea." One thing that Jordan probably does know, however, is that his play and the play of backcourt mate Matt Langel will be essential to Penn's success. Langel put up 24 points on 8-for-14 shooting at Brown and comes in averaging 12.1 points per game. Jordan and Penn freshman David Klatsky, meanwhile, are charged with containing two of the league's leading point guards in Dartmouth sophomore Flinder Boyd and Harvard freshman Elliott Prasse-Freeman. The 5' 11" Boyd, sans cast this season after playing with an unsightly splint on his left hand all of last year, is 11th in the nation in assists, averaging 6.9 per outing. The 6' 3" Prasse-Freeman checks in a tad lower, at No. 14 in the nation with 6.5 assists per contest. While Penn's floor general only dishes out 4.6 assists per game, Jordan also pours in 15.2 points each night. Neither Boyd nor Prasse-Freeman averages even nine points. "I expect them to try to get their teammates involved in as most point guards should do," Jordan said. "But this weekend, [Boyd and Prasse-Freeman] are going to have to beat us by scoring in order for their teams to beat us. They're not going to get those six or seven assists that they want to get. They're going to have to do some other things." Critical to Penn's success in its first home Ivy weekend of the season is that it does not get lethargic or look beyond these two games to next Tuesday's showdown at Princeton. But at yesterday afternoon's practice, that seemed to be far from the case. "I don't think there's going to be anything different [this weekend]," Onyekwe said of his first home Ivy weekend. "We just want to play as consistently as possible and hopefully come out to an early lead again and get ready for Princeton on Tuesday. But it's a big stretch for us -- trying to keep focus before the Princeton game."