When the Penn women's basketball team came out with this season's schedule, I immediately circled this weekend's home games against Harvard and Dartmouth as the two most important of the season.
The Quakers, Crimson and Big Green are the dominant powers in the Ivy League right now.
And while this game may not get as much attention as the little game in Jacksonville between Philadelphia and New England teams on Sunday, quite a few honored principles of sports will hold true up and down the East Coast this weekend.
First, offense draws the attention of fans, and there will be plenty of firepower on display on 33rd Street tonight and tomorrow. Harvard leads the Ivy League in points scored per game with 71.7, while Dartmouth is second with 64.5. The Crimson is the most accurate shooting team in the Ancient Eight, with a per-game field goal percentage of 43.8. Penn is third at 40.7 and Dartmouth is fourth at 39.9.
At the individual level, it's not hard to see where the scoring will come from this weekend. The top six three-point shooters by percentage in the Ivy League will be in the Palestra -- Penn's Cat Makarewich and Karen Habrukowich (first and fourth), Harvard's Reka Cserny and Shana Franklin (third and sixth), and Dartmouth's Ashley Taylor and Angie Soriaga (second and fifth).
Cserny, a 6-foot-3 senior center, leads the Ivy League with an astonishing average of 21.2 points per game, and is second in the league in field-goal percentage at 51.1.
Dartmouth has a Ms. Inside and a Ms. Outside in sophomore center Elise Morrison and junior guard Jeannie Cullen. Morrison, last year's Ivy League Rookie of the Year, has only played 10 games this season because of a suspension at the beginning of the season and injuries thereafter. But since then, she has averaged 14.6 points and eight rebounds per game.
Morrison also has a side job as a fashion model, in case you needed another reason to watch.
But, as every Indianapolis Colts fan will tell you, it is defense that wins championships, and it is here Penn has a tremendous advantage. The Quakers have allowed the fewest points per game in the Ivy League this season, 55.7, while Harvard is fifth at 64.0 and Dartmouth is sixth at 65.2.
Penn has also been incredibly stingy in allowing shots from the floor, holding their opponents to 35.8 percent field goal shooting -- a league low, while Dartmouth and Harvard are the best at denying three-point shots to the other team.
None of this is lost on Penn coach Patrick Knapp, who has been preaching defense all season and knows that his team has to step it up even more this weekend.
Knapp also said that he would prefer a defensive battle to a shootout.
"Hopefully we win 46-45," he said. "I respect Harvard's weapons, and the scoring totals ... Dartmouth is tough to stop when they revolve around Morrison. So we have our work cut out for us defensively."
Although Knapp is focusing on his team over its individuals -- which might sound familiar to those of you with a vested interest in Sunday's big game -- I think that the Quakers will go as far this weekend as Jennifer Fleischer takes them. If she dominates in the same way that she has against so many other teams this season, the team wearing red and blue will have a lot to celebrate this weekend, while those wearing green will rue a missed opportunity.
Today and tomorrow, that is.
Jonathan Tannenwald is a juniorUrban Studies major from Washington, D.C. His e-mail address is jtannenw@sas.upenn.edu.
