| Dave Zeitlin: Dancing in the biggest dance - the NCAAs | ||||||||||||
| Dan McQuade: Sitting home and watching the tube | ||||||||||||
| This is the season. Three road games against three of the best teams in the Ivy League, and the Penn men's basketball team needs to win all of them. Pick your clich‚. Do-or-die, now-or-never, win or go home. This is the season. The question, of course, is how will the Quakers respond when they visit Yale and Brown this weekend and then Princeton on Tuesday? Will they curl up in a little ball and surrender to the immutable forces of the Ivy League as my colleague next to me is claiming? Or will they do just as they have all season -- take a bad loss in stride and continue on toward triumph? My money is on the latter. Example: The Quakers have suffered three bad losses this season -- a meltdown against Davidson, an overtime heartbreaker at Harvard and a shocking defeat at the hands of Columbia. After the Davidson loss, the Quakers reeled off four straight wins in dominating fashion, annihilating their opponents by an average of 16 points. After the Quakers' tough defeat to the Crimson in Boston, they won five straight and captured an outright Big 5 title for the first time in 28 years. So how will this team respond after a humiliating home loss to Columbia? Three straight road victories against the cream of the Ivy League crop sounds about right to me. Why people are writing off this 2001-2002 season after a couple of early conference losses is beyond my grasp. After that loss to Columbia, I listened to fans cry and moan. Another season down the drain. Kiss the NCAA tournament goodbye. Why? Why is the season over just four games into the conference schedule? Why are these fans, the same fans that were ringing such praise after a Big 5 championship, so ready to jump ship on the season? Penn fans have to realize something -- the Ivy League is much better than in years past. According to the RPI rankings, the league is 15th best in the nation out of 32 conferences. The Quakers can no longer show up, shake their opponents hands and go on their merry way with a victory. As the league known for its academics continues to woo solid recruits and build first-rate basketball programs, perfect 14-0 seasons will be much harder to come by for the big "P's" of the Ivies -- Penn and Princeton. The Quakers will get tripped up on occasion. But so will Brown, Yale, Princeton and Harvard. Thus, two league losses will not end a team's title hopes. I'm not denying the fact that Saturday's loss to Columbia was awful. It was. The Quakers had no business losing to the less-talented Lions on their home floor. I'm just saying that fans shouldn't write off the season, call for Coach Dunphy's head and curse the very existence of Penn basketball. It's hard to question the talent level of this team, but some of you may be questioning Penn's heart. You may be wondering why the Quakers can dispose of talented Big 5 teams, but quite frequently play down to the level of less-gifted Ancient Eight squads. The heart and emotion was there against St. Joe's. It was not against Columbia. I can't tell you why this happened, but I can tell you that I'm confident Saturday's Palestra display will not happen again. I know the Quakers badly want a ticket to the NCAA tournament. That's the reason why these players suit up every game. It's the reason why they play college basketball. It's the reason why they came to Penn, the reason why team leader Andrew Toole transferred here. The heart will return. And the Ivy title will follow. Yeah, so Penn's in a tight spot right now. Two road games against two of the best teams in the Ivy League this weekend. I'll be there. And I'll be home after a couple of Penn wins. | ||||||||||||
| After last Friday's win over Cornell, a reporter asked Penn men's basketball coach Fran Dunphy if Penn was in the driver's seat to an easy Ivy League title. "We've lost at Harvard -- we're 2-1," Dunphy said. "We've got a lot of the toughest games that we could possibly play left. "I think [the league] is wide open like crazy." No one could have expected how true his words would ring the following night, when Columbia's Joe Case hit two free throws with 3.1 seconds left as Penn was upset by Columbia, 54-53. And as the roughly 20 Columbia fans -- wearing "C" sweaters that seemed more appropriate for the 1930's than a basketball game -- celebrated on the Palestra hardwood, the Penn fans in attendance had to be asking themselves how did Penn just lose? Are the Quakers a legitimate NCAA Tournament team? The Red and Blue now stand at 2-2 in the Ivy League. First place Princeton is 4-0, while Penn is in fifth place, tied with Columbia. Only 0-6 Cornell and 0-6 Dartmouth are below the Quakers in the Ivy League standings. The Red and Blue have shown flashes of greatness so far this season and are undoubtedly the most talented team in the Ancient Eight. But unfortunately for Penn fans, the Quakers aren't going to win the Ivy League this year, and they aren't going to the NCAA Tournament. First off, let's get this out of the way -- Penn has to win the Ivy League to go the Big Dance. Any small hope that the Quakers could get an at-large bid was erased after the loss to Columbia. Penn's projected strength of schedule is 142 according to the RPI -- far too low to receive an at-large bid. Now, I know that this year's Penn team is talented. The Quakers have a solid rotation, they really pass the ball well, and they play great defense. But one need not look further than this year's Big 5 to see that it isn't always the most talented team that wins. Let's face it -- as well as Penn played in Big 5 games this year, the Quakers are not as talented as St. Joseph's or Temple. And they don't have a player who is as good as La Salle's Rasual Butler. Penn went 4-0 in the Big 5, but no game was easy. They slipped past two teams in overtime, got a fortunate non-call to help them outlast Temple, and survived horrific free-throw shooting in the final minute against St. Joe's. I'm not trying to take anything away from the Quakers. But in the Ivy League, Penn could end up playing the role of St. Joseph's. The Hawks are 1-2 in Big 5 competition this season, including a 29-point loss to Villanova -- and they have two potential first-round NBA draft picks in their starting backcourt. And Penn is undeniably more talented than Harvard or Columbia -- and they lost to both. Like St. Joe's, the Quakers were a victim of bad luck, playing down to their opponent, or other Ivy teams getting up for them. Nonetheless, Penn has not started 2-2 or worse in the Ivy League since the 1990-91 season, when they started 1-3 and finished 9-5 in third. Looking through the history of Penn in the Ivy League, a hot start has usually meant an Ancient Eight title. In fact, only twice, in 1981-82 and 1986-87, have the Quakers started 2-2 or worse and gone on to win the Ivy League championship. Furthermore, in 1974-76, Penn started its Ivy campaign 2-2 and then went 9-1 the rest of the way. Yet, the Red and Blue still finished second in the league and out of the postseason. The Quakers undoubtedly have the talent and the ability this year to make some noise in the NCAA Tournament. They proved that with a hot start and a 13-3 out-of-conference record. But it's simply just too late for the Quakers. Without an Ivy conference tournament, Penn pretty much needs to win out to head to the NCAA Tournament. And with the way the Quakers have played against Ivy League opponents so far, it appears that Penn will just have to hope for a bid to the expanded NIT. | ||||||||||||
The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.
Donate
