M. Hoops Harvard Preview: Crimson in trouble without their rock

The Harvard basketball team knew that its season wouldn't get any easier when star center Brian Cusworth was forced to leave the team midseason. And having completed a once-over in the Ivy League, the Crimson have discovered that 2007 would not bring any miracles.

After a solid home win over Cornell, Harvard (10-14, 3-7 Ivy League) has dropped four in a row, and will look to rebound when the Quakers (17-8, 8-1), winners of five straight, trek northward to visit at the Lavietes Pavilion in Boston.

While the prospects for righting the ship may seem bleak against a streaking Quakers team that has already bested them once this season - 67-53 at the Palestra two weeks ago - the Crimson do have one thing going for them: They have nothing to lose.

If Penn wants to maintain its stranglehold on first place, however, it must survive the weekend without a slip-up and avoid looking ahead to what has become the season's main event - the Yale game next weekend.

"These games are for the championship," Penn coach Glen Miller said in reference to his team's two-game stand this weekend. "Yale couldn't be further from my mind."

Even though Harvard's lineup is spread thin without Brian Cusworth in the post, it's not as if they're completely bereft of talent.

While the Crimson's lineup, which features three sophomores, has certainly shown its youth during this recent skid, they do have a handful of talented players.

Junior forward Brad Unger has stepped into a starting role since Cusworth's departure, putting up nine points and 6.8 rebounds per game.

Up top, senior Jim Goffredo and sophomore Drew Housman have led the Harvard scoring charge with a combined 28.1 points per game on the season. While Goffredo has cooled off considerably of late, he is always a threat from downtown, averaging nearly two and a half threes per contest.

While Miller pointed to the Red and Blue's effective perimeter defense as a primary factor in their victory earlier this month, he is wary of Goffredo's hot hand.

"Good shooters aren't going to stay in a slump for too long," the coach said.

But with the way Penn has played defense of late, a good game from Goffredo won't be the difference for Harvard.

Overmatched at most - if not all - positions, the Crimson will have to pull something new out of their hats to put a kink in the Quakers' rapidly advancing championship plans.

Senior guard Ibrahim Jaaber wouldn't rule it out. Drawing on what he saw earlier this year, the tri-captain likened Harvard to another young team that gave the Quakers some trouble this weekend.

"We saw in Harvard a lot of what we saw in Cornell," Jaaber said. "They've got a lot of fight and a lot of heart."

But what they haven't got is someone to stop Penn's big men.

Unger has played well down low, but he and fellow forward Evan Harris were no match for Penn's duo of Mark Zoller and Stephen Danley last time around. The two went off for a combined 27 points and went to the line 13 times, leading Zoller to say they will surely "pound it inside" tonight.

But now in the heat of the stretch run of conference play, Miller, for one, knows that familiarity may be Penn's worst enemy.

"There's no secrets this time of year," he said.

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