It has been three years since the Penn men's basketball team has won its final three games before Ivy League play started.
Sixteen days ago, even the possibility of winning three straight for the rest of the season looked bleak.
But the Quakers are coming in to Ancient Eight play on a roll, after beating Saint Joseph's, 67-59, Tuesday night to even their record at 7-7.
The winning streak is a far cry from the five-game, 42-day win drought in which Penn was stuck immediately preceding the run of success.
All season, Quakers coach Fran Dunphy has maintained that the key to victory is making shots.
His claim is confirmed in the numbers.
In Penn's seven wins, it has shot a solid 47.4 percent from the field, but in its seven losses, it has converted only 35.6 percent of its attempts.
The Quakers have become a very streaky shooting team, going red hot for a few minutes but also having extended cold spells.
Dunphy and the players have said that they have felt that their offense has been playing well all season but simply has times where the shots are not falling.
"Sometimes the ball just doesn't go into the hoop," senior forward Jan Fikiel said.
However, both Fikiel and Dunphy have admitted that there is more to it than just the luck of making shots -- the Quakers have to take smarter shots.
"You have to try to get open shots and easy lay-ups," Fikiel said.
Dunphy added that Penn's transition game and defense will also help their offensive possessions, in addition to good shot selection.
"You got to defend it on one end and you have take good opportunities at the other and not force things," he said.
The other major struggle for the Quakers this season has been winning close games. Dunphy hopes that, like their shooting woes, the Quakers have put those struggles behind them.
Senior guard and team captain Tim Begley expressed his frustration at the close defeats the Red and Blue suffered in each of their five straight losses between Dec. 8 and Jan. 12.
"A little disappointing I guess to have seven losses," Begley said. "We pretty much should have won at least four or five of those games."
However, the Quakers were able to win a relatively close game against the Hawks, and it may be that they have gained the necessary mental fortitude to win the tight battles.
"Guys are gaining confidence," Begley said.
He singled out guards Eric Osmundson and Ibby Jaaber as two examples of players who have improved their play significantly since the start of the season.
"Oz and Ibby are completely different players than they were a couple weeks ago," Begley said.
If there is any game that exemplifies this, it was the 85-63 win over Lafayette on Jan. 18.
Osmundson hit four of eight three-pointers and was 8-of-12 from the field, scoring 20 points. Jaaber set a career high with 24 points on 8-of-10 shooting, including 4-of-5 from behind the arc. The effort earned the sophomore Ivy League Player of the Week honors.
With the exception of the second game of the season, an 89-52 loss at Providence in the preseason NIT -- in which the Friars shot 65.5 percent -- the Quakers have done a good job defending the opposition's shooters so far.
"I think we're defending at a decent rate ... since the Providence game," Dunphy said.
Aside from the game against the Friars, the Red and Blue has held its opponents to just under 40 percent shooting.
Coming into this season, opponents keyed on Begley as Penn's main scoring threat.
Despite some games, like the Big 5 Classic victory over La Salle, in which he scored 29 points, Begley has not been a dominant scoring presence.
In fact, the Quakers have four players other than Begley -- Fikiel, Osmundson, Jaaber and sophomore forward Mark Zoller -- who have scored more than 20 points in a game this season.
Among the other Ivy League teams, only Harvard and Yale have four players who have hit the 20-point mark. Cornell and Columbia have three each, and Brown, Dartmouth and Princeton have a pair each of twenty-point scorers.
Begley is only averaging 13.1 points per game, and has said that he is quite content to pass the ball -- as seen in his school-record-tying 13 assists against Lafayette.
Back in 2002, when Penn last rode a three-game winning streak into Ivy League play, the Quakers cruised to an 11-3 Ivy record and made the NCAA Tournament. But last year 11 wins would not have been enough.
With a very good Princeton team favored to repeat atop the league and dangerous teams in Yale, Brown and Columbia, Penn has a number of areas to work on if it hopes to get back to the "Big Dance".
The last few games have been a big step up, but it remains to be seen whether or not the Quakers have enough to get it done in the 14-game tournament that is the Ivy League season.
