With a thrilling win over Yale last weekend, Cornell actually bumped Penn into first place in the Ivy League, giving the Quakers control of their own destiny.
On Saturday, the Big Red (13-9, 6-2 Ivy) will attempt to steal the conference's top spot and undo what it did for Penn (15-8, 6-1 Ivy) a week ago.
It's been over a month since Penn soundly defeated Cornell in the two teams' Ivy League opener.
But since that fateful night in Ithaca, N.Y., the Big Red have emerged as one of the league's hottest teams, having now climbed to just a half-game behind the Quakers in the conference standings.
And though Penn rides a winning streak of its own into this weekend, Cornell should prove to be a much tougher opponent on Saturday than the Ivy League bottom-feeders that the Quakers took down this past week.
What's more, the Quakers realize that beating the Big Red on Saturday will be a more difficult task than it was when the teams last met.
"I think Cornell was kind of inexperienced when we played them at first," senior tri-captain Mark Zoller said. "A month into the season they're growing more confident as each game goes by."
Much of that renewed confidence and success has stemmed from the maturation of Cornell's talented core of freshmen.
6-foot-6 swingman Ryan Wittman and guard Louis Dale have continued to be the most dominant first-year players in the league, as the two have combined to average close to half of the team's points per game.
In Cornell's first game against Penn, the Quakers had trouble guarding the versatile Wittman, who netted 16 points, converting six of seven free throw attempts.
Anchoring the Big Red has been senior Andrew Naeve, who has performed especially well as of late. The 6-10 center has recorded double-doubles in his past two games and has been by far the most prolific shot-blocker in the Ivy League.
But in the past few games, yet another freshman has stepped up for the Big Red.
6-7, 230-pound forward Alex Tyler has seen his playing time increase substantially, notching 26 minutes in Cornell's impressive win over Yale. In that contest, Tyler made six of seven from the field and pulled down seven rebounds.
"He's had some good scoring games," Penn coach Glen Miller said of Tyler. "That's now another dimension to their offense to go along with Naeve inside."
Given Cornell's new scoring threat, the Quakers will have to focus more on defense to put themselves in position to win again.
"Hopefully defensively we can do a better job [than we did last game against Cornell]," Miller said.
Penn will also need to snap out of its recent shooting slump - the team has shot only 43.7 percent from the field and 21.9 percent from outside in its last three games.
One of the great anomalies to come out of the Red and Blue's last game against the Big Red was its perfect percentage from the charity stripe (10-10). Penn is currently shooting just 67 percent from the line.
It will also be interesting to see which player will start at the two-guard position. While freshman Darren Smith has started the last three games despite his injured status, sophomore Kevin Egee played well in a starting role against Cornell, adding 10 points, six of which came from beyond the arc.
Though the Big Red's recent success poses a real threat to the Quakers, Zoller emphasized the importance of staying under control at the Palestra on Saturday.
"We're going to have to be composed and make them play our game," he said.
And Penn will have to do just that if it wants to remain in the driver's seat in its quest for another league title.
