A look at the Lions

At 4-4 Ivy, Columbia will not be an easy win for Penn, but some of the matchups bode well for the Quakers. The Lions' strengths are in mostly areas in which the Quakers are strong, or at least have looked good in as of late.

Columbia shoots a whopping 39.3% from long range, and a month ago that would have brought chills down a Penn fans' neck, but the Quakers' defense has shut down opponents that can shoot the three. In the last three Ivy games (wins at home over Dartmouth, Harvard and Princeton) the Red and Blue have allowed only 21.4% shooting -- only 9 makes out of 42 tries. In order to adjust, Penn played a lot of man defense while switching off of screens to get out to contest shooters, as well as simply playing tighter perimeter defense. Before the last three games, opponents were connecting on 39.8% of threes.

The Quakers prey on Ivy backcourts, and Columbia also turns it over a good amount (15.1 TO/g).

Also, coach Joe Jones plays 11 players over 10 minutes per game, as only John Baumann (27 min/g) plays more than 23 minutes per game. Penn coach Glen Miller has also recently had many players in his rotation, so while the three captains do play a lot, tiring out Penn should not be an issue.

What could be, however, is foul trouble in the frontcourt. One of the Quakers starters -- either Mark Zoller or Stephen Danley -- seems to get in foul trouble every game. Seven of the last nine contests have seen at least one of them pick up four or more fouls. This was less of a problem in their last two. Against Princeton they each had three, and against Harvard last Saturday Brennan Votel -- usually stronger on the defensive end -- stepped in to score 11 points in 16 minutes.

Now, if Penn can only box out and get some defensive rebounds, this thing will be over real quick.