A year ago, the Penn men's basketball team responded from a winless opening Ivy weekend with its third100-point performance since the 1996-97 season with a crushing 104-69 defeat of Harvard.
As the Penn fans filed out of the Palestra to collect their free promotional cheesesteaks, the Crimson players were left with a bitter taste in their mouths that has still not been appeased.
But tonight, a very different Harvard team (7-10, 2-2 Ivy )will try to get revenge for the thrashing last year.
The most noticeable difference to this year's Crimson squad comes in the form of center Brian Cusworth, who sat out all of last season because of a stress fracture in his right foot. He will be facing the Quakers (9-7, 2-0) for the first time as a starter.
Cusworth, along with 6-foot-8 junior forward Matt Stehle, provides a formidable frontcourt for the Crimson as it takes on a Quakers team that dominated Yale and Brown inside the paint last weekend.
Currently, Cusworth and Stehle are first and second in the Ivy League in rebounds, respectively.
While Cusworth averages 9.8 rebounds per game, Stehle has tallied 8.4 boards per game. The next best Ivy League rebounder, Columbia's Matt Preston, averages 7.3 boards.
The leading rebounder for the Quakers, sophomore Mark Zoller, is averaging only six rebounds per game.
Prior to yesterday's practice, the Quakers had not seen any Harvard games on film. Yet they were still confident in maintaining their own style of play this weekend.
Senior forward Jan Fikiel did not anticipate any major changes in the Quakers' game plan.
"If one of the guys hurts us down low, we'll double him," Fikiel said. "I'm sure we will be well prepared.
His coach agreed.
"We'll see how they are gonna guard us," Dunphy said. "We're gonna try and play the same way we always do. We are an inside-first, then kick-it-back-out kind of team."
Stehle is the Crimson's leading scorer so far, averaging 14.4 points per game, good for fourth in the Ivy League. Cusworth is right behind him, averaging 14.0 points per game.
The Quakers plan to use their depth up front to counter Harvard's inside game. While the Crimson's starters rank among the Ivy leaders in points and rebounds, their bench contributes little .
Graham Beatty, the first forward off the bench for the Crimson, is averaging only 3.9 points per game.
Besides depth, the Quakers also appear to have an advantage on the perimeter, with senior guard Tim Begley leading the Ancient Eight with 5.6 assists per game.
The Red and Blue only attempted 13 threes in the win over Brown. Sophomore guard Ibby Jaaber said that the Penn offense can adjust to its opposing defenses -- against Brown, the Quakers pounded the ball inside to sophomore Steve Danley without relying too heavily on the trifecta.
"Going into games, we don't really say we want to aim for this amount of threes ... it just happens that way," sophomore guard Ibby Jaaber said. "If we have to take 30 three-pointers we'll take 30 three-pointers; if we have to feed the post all game, we will do that."
But given Harvard's interior presence, 30 three-pointers might not be too far off.
