I'm not much of a movie guy. But the Penn women's basketball team has quite a script on its hands as it heads into its most difficult weekend of the year, playing at two-time defending champion Harvard on Friday and first-place Dartmouth on Saturday.
We have heroes and villains -- or heroines and villainesses, in this case. Penn's fearless leader is unquestionably senior forward Jewel Clark. She has delivered time and again for the Quakers, leading the team in points per game (20) and steals (2.3), while spending, on average, over 35 minutes on the floor each game this season. She will have to do all that and more this weekend for Penn to stay tied with or surpass the Big Green for first place in the Ivy League.
Her partner in crime is 6-foot-3 sophomore center Jennifer Fleischer. She has given the Quakers much-needed size in the post, pulling down 9.3 rebounds per game.
But the enemies stand waiting. Harvard will present a two-headed monster in the form of senior forward Hana Peljto and junior center Reka Cserny. Peljto, the defending Ivy League Player of the Year, is tops in the Ancient Eight in scoring and rebounding, with 24 points and 10.6 boards per game. Cserny has been touted as a legitimate WNBA prospect. The Crimson also has five of the last eight "Ivy League Champions" banners hanging above its court.
Dartmouth has arguably this season's most talked about player, freshman center Elise Morrison. All she has done is average 18 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, including a league-leading 6.62 offensive boards. She is the Ancient Eight's best shooter, making 55.8 percent of her shots so far this season, and has scored 20 points or more in all three of the Big Green's Ivy League games this season -- including 32 against Harvard. Again, she's a freshman.
But the bad guys in movies usually have some weakness for the heroes to exploit, and Harvard has a big one: two losses in the Ivy League this season. Both were in overtime and both were at home, to Dartmouth and Cornell, respectively.
Dartmouth is the team which has returned to reassert its dominance in the face of the new kids on the block. At least a share of the championship has gone to Hanover 13 times in Ivy history, but Harvard and Penn have been running the show for the last few years, leaving the Big Green without a title since the 1999-2000 season.
A good movie needs a quest for some kind of prize, and all the better if a far away mystical land is involved. How appropriate, then, that Boston and Hanover are the two farthest Ivy League venues from Philadelphia. Yes, Boston is a nice place to visit, but why would one want to travel to the woods of New Hampshire in the middle of February, especially with the weather as it is and the Democratic primary's media bandwagon long since departed?
So get out the popcorn, dim the lights and cue the tympanis and trumpets. It's time for this season's featured presentation.
Actually, I need a title for this thing first.
How about "Hunt for Red and Blue March?"
Sounds good to me.
Action!
