Josh Hirsch: 'Any questions?' You better believe it

Tuesday's headline on the back page of this newspaper read "After two games: Any questions?" in reference to Penn's pair of big wins to start the Ivy League season.

Well, as long as you're asking, yes, I have a few.

Is the League race over? I agree wholeheartedly that Penn is in the driver's seat in the Ivy League race. Since the 1990-91 season, only twice has the eventual Ivy champion started out the season anything other than 2-0 - Princeton started 0-1 in 1995-96 and Penn was 1-1 in 2001-02.

With only 4-9 Yale unbeaten in League play (at 1-0) at this point, things look good for the Quakers from that angle.

And it's not just the Empire State sweep that is threatening to end the Ivy race, it's the way that the Quakers did it. Penn went on the road and won by 18 and 26 points on back-to-back nights, thrashing a Columbia team that was gunning for the title, especially after beating Princeton the night before.

Will Penn be able to keep up with its start? Those of you non-freshmen out there may remember a certain team from just a year ago that started out the Ivy League season beating Cornell by 40 and Columbia by 32, albeit at home.

That Quakers squad roared in the first half of the conference season with an average margin of victory of 23 points. The second half of the league slate, with five road games, was not as kind. Penn went 5-2, with a scoring margin of five points.

Penn is fortunate this year that five of its first seven are on the road this time, with the bulk of the second half at the Palestra. But even two big wins do not get Penn crowned. Certainly the end of last season is in the minds of the other Ivy coaches.

Who can Glen Miller rely on after the first four starters? I don't think Miller knows the answer at this point. He has used three different starters who are distinctly different players (Tommy McMahon, Michael Kach and Kevin Egee), and no one seems to have won the job.

McMahon lost the spot because of erratic play, and Kach has not fully healed from a foot injury. Egee finally seemed to get a rhythm, scoring 10 points in 17 minutes against Cornell, but he was ineffective early against Columbia and was replaced by McMahon, who played better than he had previously.

But after this trio, Penn's bench has still been inconsistent. Miller wants to use more players in his rotation - former coach Fran Dunphy's six- and seven-man rotations were a reason I thought Penn wore out down the stretch.

I would say that Miller should experiment more and try to push his players to see what they can give him, but that should not be put above winning games. If Miller thinks that he can still win with substitutes in the lineup, then he should do it.

Can Penn win a close game? I have no idea. The Quakers have had only two close ones this season, going 1-1 against a pair of bad teams. If the Quakers do end up in the NCAA Tournament, they will most likely have to win a close game to advance. Penn has not won many such contests recently, and the ones they have involved hanging on for dear life rather than great play down the stretch.

I can think of no single great clutch play in the final minute of a game since December 2003, in the Holiday Tournament against Manhattan and St. John's.

Luckily for the Quakers, they have three Big 5 games in the next several days, starting with La Salle tonight. These contests usually are tight, emotional battles, and three wins here would mean much more to the team's confidence and public perception than two Ivy wins.

Josh Hirsch is a senior urban studies major from Roslyn, N.Y., and is former Senior Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is jjhirsch@sas.upenn.edu.

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