When the Penn men's basketball team began its Ivy League campaign last season at Yale, it was defending a 23-game league winning streak.
The Quakers lost, 54-52, signaling the end of their stranglehold on the Ancient Eight.
This year, the Red and Blue (7-7) enters tonight's league opener against Yale at the Palestra on a more modest three-game winning streak.
Penn knows it cannot afford to take any team lightly if it wants to regain its league dominance and contend for a berth in the NCAA Tournament.
"We can't go in there and expect a team like Yale to just lay down for us," sophomore Ibby Jaaber said. "Last year they did kind of sneak up on us."
Penn Coach Fran Dunphy believes last year's loss came, in part, from rust due to having played only one game in 16 days leading up to the league opener.
This season, Yale finds itself in a similar situation. The Elis' game originally scheduled for last Saturday against Brown was postponed due to snow, meaning they haven't played since their contest against Saint Peter's, Jan. 15.
During Yale's 13-day hiatus, the Quakers have reeled off three consecutive victories, including Tuesday's 67-59 triumph over Big 5 rival Saint Joseph's.
After a rough patch in December, Penn's confidence -- along with its shooting touch -- seems to be peaking at the right time.
"It's kind of like a different environment in the locker room," Jaaber said. "You can tell everybody's pumped now, everybody's holding their head high and everybody's excited about what's coming."
What's coming is a formidable Elis squad which boasts an excellent starting backcourt in seniors Edwin Draughan and Alex Gamboa.
"We think that their guards are as good as any guard combination in the league," Dunphy said. "They can score and they know how to play and that's a tough combination."
Gamboa and Draughan are indeed a veritable scoring threat. Draughan, a second team All-Ivy selection last year, is currently second in the league with 15.4 points per game. Gamboa, a former Ivy League Rookie of the Year, is netting 11.6 points and dishing out 3.1 assists per game.
The Quakers, however, will be prepared for Yale's backcourt duo, according to Jaaber, because they have several similar players on their team. Lorenz Manthey, who in Jaaber's estimation is a "wonderful shooter," plays the part of Gamboa in practice, while North Carolina transfer Adam Franklin and David Whitehurst imitate the slashing Draughan.
Dominick Martin, Yale's 6-foot-10 center, must also figure prominently into Penn's defensive scheme as he is third in the Ancient Eight with 15.3 points per game and scored a career-high 20 points against the Quakers last year.
Despite Penn's depth at the forward position with Steve Danley, Ryan Pettinella, Mark Zoller and Jan Fikiel, Dunphy is not sure which matchup will ultimately prove to be most crucial for the Quakers.
"I think our frontcourt has to play well," he said. "But I would say the same thing about our backcourt too, that Begley, Osmundson and Ibby need to really have a great weekend for us."
