Men's Hoops looks for repeat

Last year at this time, the Penn men's basketball team was coming off a 12-17 season and was not expected to make much noise.

This year?

"I think we're all really excited to get the year underway," Penn senior forward Ugonna Onyekwe said. "There's a lot of anticipation to start the year."

The Quakers were no doubt excited for the start of last season. This year, however, Penn is coming off a 25-7 season and an Ivy League championship.

Last season, the Quakers finished in a three-way tie for the league crown with Yale and Princeton, with an 11-3 Ivy record. Penn rallied for 10 straight victories, including a win over Yale in the Ivy League playoff final, after starting the Ivy season 2-3.

Penn received a No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament South Region, but lost to California, 82-75, in the first round in Pittsburgh.

And the scary part about the 2002-2003 version of the Penn basketball team?

Everyone's back. Penn returns its starting five to the Palestra floor with expectations that haven't been this high since, it seems, the great teams of the 1970's.

Still, despite the fact that the Quakers had a successful season last year and qualified for the NCAA Tournament, they aren't content with just doing that again. And they're not getting ahead of themselves, either.

"We have the same goals, you know, the Ivy League championship, getting to the tournament and making some noise," Penn junior guard Jeff Schiffner said. "We're going to try and distance ourselves from last year."

"Obviously it's disappointing that we lost that Cal game and didn't win the Ivy League championship outright," Penn forward Koko Archibong said. "So we have some motivation already."

The Quakers will start trying to distance themselves tomorrow night against Penn State. The Lions are the first of many major non-conference opponents that the Quakers will take on this season. In addition to the Big 5 slate against Temple, St. Joseph's La Salle and Villanova, Penn will also take on Providence, Colorado and Southern Cal.

The top man in the Quakers' starting five is Onyekwe, last year's Ivy League Player of the Year. The 6-foot-8 senior averaged 17.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game last season.

Archibong is Onyekwe's partner-in-crime, so to speak, averaging 14.2 points and 5.7 boards per game last year. He led all scorers with 21 points -- on 9-of-15 shooting -- and hauled in 16 rebounds, including seven on the offensive glass, against Yale in the Quakers 77-58 win in the of the Ivy League playoff final.

"This league hasn't seen guys like Ugonna and Koko in a long time," Schiffner said.

Back also is another first team All-Ivy Leaguer (Onyekwe and Archibong were also on the team), senior guard Andrew Toole. Last year, in his first year after transferring from Elon, Toole averaged 11.5 points per game. The Quakers were noticeably better when he was on the floor, dropping games to St. Joe's and Davidson when Toole was out due to a right foot injury.

Toole is now perfectly healthy and is helping the Quakers take aim at another Ivy League title.

"I think everyone's really excited," he said. "It seems like forever since we started practicing -- I'm just excited to get out there and play someone in a different jersey."

Schiffner and sophomore Tim Begley round out the starting lineup.

Begley averaged 6.8 points and 4.7 rebounds last season, while Schiffner netted 10.0 points a game and pulled down 4.4 boards.

The Quakers didn't rest on their laurels over the summer. Archibong, Onyekwe and junior guard Charlie Copp played in Philadelphia's prestigious Sonny Hill League, while Toole and Schiffner were on a team that reached the semifinals in the Jersey Shore League.

Begley played in the Belmont Outdoor League, while senior center Adam Chubb also was on a team in the Jersey Shore League.

The top opponent for the Quakers in the Ivy League appears to be Yale, who went 21-11 last season and won a postseason game in the NIT, over Rutgers. The Elis, like Penn, return their entire starting five, and look to be the main obstacle between the Quakers and the NCAA Tournament.

"They're going to be really good again," Toole said. "They played us really tough in the three games [that Penn played them in]."

The Quakers also expect the rest of the Ivy League to be a factor as well, however.

Yale is "going to be tough this year," Schiffner said. "But so are a lot of other teams in our league. It's going to be a real battle."

Penn was picked first by the media in a preseason poll this year, getting all but five of the first place votes. Yale was second and Princeton third.

"I don't think that matters. I think last year we were picked low, and we came back to win," Toole said. "Those things don't really matter... who knows what's going to happen this season?"

Still, the outlook for the Quakers this season is bright, and an Ivy League championship and winning a tournament game or two is not a far-fetched goal.

"I think we're really talented," Copp said. "We have everyone back... we're working hard to get [to the tournament]. We're being focused."

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