Another weekend, another split

(Penn - 78, Yale - 83) (Penn - 84, Brown - 74) View the unpublished photos:

Penn vs Yale

Penn vs Brown

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Late Friday night, it appeared the Penn men's basketball team was dead in its hunt for the coveted Ivy League title.

Less than 24 hours later, the Quakers revived themselves and showed the league this season is far from over.

A night after dropping a tight 83-78 contest to a much improved Yale squad, Penn (16-6, 3-3 Ivy League) exploded on the offensive end at Brown to salvage a weekend split.

The Quakers now stand at 3-3 in the Ivies, two games behind Princeton (10-8, 5-1) and Yale (15-7, 7-1) in the loss column. The Elis defeated the Tigers, 60-50, on Saturday night to take a commanding position in the scramble for the Ancient Eight crown. It was the first time since the 1987-88 season that Yale has swept the Quakers and Tigers.

While the Elis took the Tigers out of their rhythm with a stifling defensive effort -- Princeton shot 23 percent in the second half -- it was a potent perimeter offense that had the Quakers reeling a night earlier.

"One of our strengths we had was our perimeter offense and we thought we could break them down defensively," an upbeat Yale coach James Jones said after Friday's game. "Being able to break them down off the dribble really helped our offense."

Two of the guys who broke the Quakers off the dribble were a pair of Ivy newcomers, Alex Gamboa and Edwin Draughan. Together, the freshman backcourt came out of the locker room on fire, scoring the first 16 points of the second half to give the Elis a seven-point cushion, their second largest lead of the game.

Penn's "perimeter defense was a little suspect so Coach [Jones] told us to attack them with penetration," said Gamboa, a pesky point guard from Reno, Nev. "At halftime, Coach said he really wanted us to attack, especially in transition when they were backpedaling."

That's exactly what the Elis did, exploiting the man-to-man defense that the slow-footed Quakers presented. In addition to shooting nearly 70 percent from the field in the second half, Yale had most of Penn's impact players in foul trouble the entire game. Forward Ugonna Onyekwe and point guard Andrew Toole both watched the game's closing seconds from the sidelines with five fouls.

"We obviously didn't guard very well," Penn coach Fran Dunphy said. "We're not a very good defensive team at this point -- we have to find a way to get better defensively."

But in a game with 13 ties and 13 lead changes, Penn was still in the game down the stretch, thanks to sophomore Jeff Schiffner, who scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half.

Down three in its final possession, however, Penn couldn't get a potential game-tying shot off as reserve Charlie Copp got caught in the air and turned the ball over with four ticks left on the clock.

"That's my fault," Dunphy said. "At that point, he's struggling, I got to call a timeout. I shouldn't have left him out to dry."

It was only fitting that Yale captain Ime Archibong got the steal and made the final two free throws to extinguish Penn's hopes and send the Payne Whitney gymnasium into a frenzy. Yale's Archibong had a team-high 17 points, while Penn's Archibong (no relation) led the Quakers with 20.

But Penn didn't keep its first losing record since the 1991-1992 season for very long. The Quakers came out with an extra hop in their step on Saturday night, and corrected the problems that plagued them a night earlier.

In front of a subdued crowd of 2,493 at the Pizzitola Sports Center, the Quakers led by as many as 18 en route to an emphatic 84-74 victory over Brown (13-8, 4-4).

"We learned from our mistakes," said Toole, whose 13-point, seven-assist performance against the Bears gave him more confidence after his 0-for-8 night against Yale. "We couldn't let one loss effect us for the next night of the road trip."

Penn's blistering three-point shooting returned in Providence. Led by Tim Begley, who made 4-of-6 from behind the arc, the Quakers shot 52.9 percent from long range. Begley also scored a career-high 17 points, all of which came in the first half, and registered his first career double-double with a team-high 11 rebounds.

And after his best game of the season, Penn's freshman two-guard then promised that this season is not over just yet.

The loss to Yale "was just a heartbreaking game," Begley said. "But we've got a lot of tough kids on the team. Our team leaders won't let you get down."

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