To say the odds were against Dartmouth in its last meeting with Penn might be the understatement of the season.
With Leon Pattman out of commission due to illness, the Big Green were forced to face a top-ranked league opponent without their leading scorer in front of the relentless crowd at the Palestra.
After suffering a 20-point thrashing that night, things started looking up for the Dartmouth (8-15, 3-7 Ivy). The team rebounded to pull out a nail-biter over Princeton the following night, and Pattman was due to return to the lineup.
But the team's luck went south again last weekend as Dartmouth lost back-to-back contests against Yale and Brown, even with the return of Pattman.
The senior started out well, scoring 15 in the Big Green's loss to Yale, but then netted just six points in the loss to the Bears.
The Big Green as a whole scored 33 points against Brown, shooting a dismal 26 percent from the floor.
The loss was the second time this season Dartmouth had been held under 35 points, the first coming in the Big Green's demoralizing 51-point loss to Kansas earlier in the season.
The Quakers aren't banking on Pattman's shaky performance of late, though. The senior's record of quality play gives Penn (17-8, 8-1) plenty to watch out for as the team heads up to Hanover this weekend.
"A guy like Pattman changes the way you approach the game just because he's a very versatile player," senior Mark Zoller said. "I think he will change our game plan a little bit, but for the most part I think we're going to focus on playing tough defense and maybe just try to deny him a little more than the usual guy."
In Pattman's absence, sophomore Alex Barnett was one of the players who pitched in to pick up the slack for Dartmouth.
Barnett led the charge in the Big Green's loss to Penn earlier this year, scoring a team-high 13 while grabbing seven rebounds and snagging two steals.
Dartmouth guard DeVon Mosley has also been stepping up his effort as of late. The sophomore scored double-figure points in the games last weekend.
Even though Dartmouth is tied with Harvard for second-to-last place in the league, coach Glen Miller warns that the Quakers have much to work on to stay competitive this weekend.
"There's not that much separation between us and anybody else, and we still have to play well to be successful," Miller said. "We need to continue to tighten up and improve our execution offensively and defensively, it's not too late in the year to get better."
Not the least of Miller's mid-season adjustments has been the team's renewed vigor on defense in its last few games. Penn has all but suffocated opponents' offense in its last three games, and it is a trend that Miller would like to see continue this weekend.
"We're really focusing on building our team defense and making sure we're fundamentally solid," he said. "We need to play possession by possession; every possession is critical this weekend."
And with Dartmouth coming into the matchup shooting a nearly league-worst 41.4 percent, it doesn't seem as though the Quakers should have much trouble doing that.
