The Quakers (9-8, 3-0 Ivy) went to town against Dartmouth (5-14, 1-4) Friday night, winning 78-47. Here's some postgame video, of Dartmouth coach Paul Cormier, Penn coach Jerome Allen and finally guards Zack Rosen and Tyler Bernardini (videos will be posted as soon as they are available).
Spoiler: Rosen and Bernardini were having a good ole time after the big win.
The Dartmouth Big Green (5-13, 1-3 Ivy) have arrived at the Palestra for a Friday night matchup with the Quakers (8-8, 2-0). Follow along below as Calder Silcox, Megan Soisson and Chan Park bring you all the action.
After a bit of a hiatus, we're back with This Week on 33rd Street, looking at the weekend ahead for men's basketball. We've changed up the format a bit, and I'm now joined by my two co-editors Brian Kotloff and Kevin Esteves, who took my questions and ran with them them.
There are few things more 'Philadelphia' than Wing Bowl. Call it unique, call it wonderful, call it a scar on the city — as a non-Philadelphian I can say it is all of the above.
And tomorrow morning the annual wing devouring contest will begin at 6 a.m. at the Wachovia center, where thousands will gather to watch the absurd competing personalities go at it.
Last year's winner, Super Squib, will be there, along with Gurian-Peck's favorite Obi Wing, and a cast of others looking for fame through iron-stomached endurance.
Just a quick note on the recruiting front: Penn basketball commit Greg Louis out of Dwyer High School in Palm Beach, Fla., signed a national letter of intent to come to Penn next year.
However, as the Ivy League doesn't offer scholarships, National Letters of Intent don't really apply to the Ancient Eight. As the recruiting site berecruited.com points out, the Ivies use "likely letters," which have "the effect of a formal letter of admission provided the candidate continues to have satisfactory secondary school experience. Coaches may initiate the requests for these letter, but only the office of admission can issue a “likely” letter.”
Update: I got in touch with Louis last night and he told me there was no likely letter signing. Instead the school was just having a "ceremony," as he called it, to honor the Dwyer athletes headed to the NCAA. Louis said that he and his classmates were signing souvenirs for teachers and program boosters.
If you're not familiar with the concept of flow, here's your quick introduction. It's a phenomenon that's sweeping the lacrosse nation, seemingly getting bigger and bigger each season. In technical terms, flow is long, wavy hair meant to stick out the back of a lax player's helmet. In other terms, it is the essence of a lacrosse player.
Yesterday, four Penn laxers - seniors Will Amling and Morgan Griff, sophomore Anthony Santomo and freshman Joseph Benedick - were recognized for the remarkable flow they displayed in their newly posted team roster pictures. BroBible.com surveyed the athletic sites of all 60 Division I lacrosse teams to choose the honorees. Griff ended up in the dreaded "OverFlow" category (a.k.a. get a haircut), while the other three landed safely under "Lettuce Flow," defined as "just peeking out from under the bucket."
Growing up I was always an irrationally huge fan of Groundhog Day. The fact that we so rarely get early spring makes this Tuesday morning's revelation from Punxsutawney Phil that much more exciting.
So to go along with my irrational excitement, here's a meaningless statistical analysis of Penn's performance in years when the groundhog doesn't see his shadow (all stats since 1970).
In the last 40 years, the rodent has declared early spring 12 times. Penn has won the Ivy League seven of those years, giving them better than 50 percent odds this season.
In those 12 seasons combined, Penn went 128-40 (0.762).
The last time Punxatawney Phil graced American with an early spring, Penn won the Ivy League, going 13-1 in 2006-07.
The worst Penn has done in an early-spring year was 7-7 (1984, 1990), ensuring that the Quakers will do better than last year.
It's February, and we all know what that means: 28 nights of binge drinking for the Penn senior class!
As seniors have special events each night for the tradition of Feb Club, Penn Athletics is getting in on the act, making the Penn-Cornell basketball game on the 26th an official event.
But was this the right choice? There are probably a ton of scheduling issues with putting together the month-long party, and choosing the Cornell game means the seniors will most likely get to see a win, but if there was one game where I'm sure the Quakers could use some boisterous, seniorly support, it will be this Saturday, when Ivy League-leading Harvard comes to the Palestra.
Fortunately, the Feb Club organizers made this Saturday's event a matinee at Franklin Fountain, so the senior class can still show up for what should be a great game.
I'll admit I'm not a follower of extreme sports. But I can recognize an awesome story when I read it, and this one just happens to be about a Penn alum.
E.J. Poplawski, a 1998 engineering grad (summa cum laude, I might add), competed in this year's Winter X games in the Snowmobile adaptive snocross event.
Since leaving Penn 13 years ago, Poplawski competed as a big mountain telemark skier, lost his right leg in a skiing accident, and had a little run in with the Salt Lake City Police, which ended in a six hour standoff with SWAT personnel.
So after getting a second chance, Poplawski was back at the X-games (he finished fifth last year and had to beg his way back) with one goal: Fourth place. He finished 30 seconds off the medal-stand, but as per the ESPN profile of him, that's exactly what he was shooting for.
I took a quick search through the DP Archives to see if he made any news while at Penn, but unfortunately the only article mentioning him was a 1994 story about how Poplawski and his freshman friend helped arrest a Quad intruder.
So if you've got a free minute, check out ESPN's profile, because it's a great story.
After starting the Ivy season 2-0 for the first time since 2007-08, senior Jack Eggleston and freshman Miles Cartwright were both honored by the League this week.
Cartwright, who led the Quakers with 18 points in Friday's victory over Yale, earned Rookie of the Week. If you're keeping count at home, that's his fourth ROTW award.
Saturday, it was the co-captain Eggleston's turn to shine, as he tied a career high with 25 points and 12 rebounds, mounting a comeback win over Brown. Eggleston opened the overtime scoring with a three-point dagger, and then punctuated the period with a two-handed slam two minutes later. It was his fourth double-double this season
Eggleston split the Player of the Week award with Harvard junior Kyle Casey, who the Quakers will face next Saturday at the Palestra. Eggleston also earned Big 5 Player of the Week honors.
Penn basketball recruiting target Camryn Crocker has indicated that he's down to three schools, and Penn has made the list.
Crocker, a 6-foot-2 point guard out of California's Los Alamitos high, told scout.com's Greg Hicks (Here's a link to the article but it's under a paywall) that the Quakers, along with UC Irvine and University of Denver were his top three.
“I was at Penn last weekend and it was great,” Crocker told Hicks. “I loved it there. I got to know the coaches a little better and had a chance to hang with the players. I also went to a game at the Palestra and it was really nice.”
Judging by the timing of the article, Crocker saw Penn beat St. Joe's earlier this month.
Crocker told The DP back in October that he liked Penn's academic prestige, as well as the "up-tempo" style of play at Penn.
“Penn would be a no-brainer if they were allowed to offer full scholarships,” he added.
He also had positive things to say to Hicks about UC Irvine ("I came away very impressed with the campus and the facilities, so it was a really good visit too”), though he is yet to visit Denver. He told Hicks that he has no time frame for his decision.
Hicks, one of Scout's West Coast recruiting analysts, called Crocker "one of the better unsigned point guards remaining in the 2011 West Coast class."
Saturday, Conner Paez led the men's team at the Wesley A. Brown Invitational at the Naval Accadamy. Paez, Penn's standout freshman, cruised to an impressive 8:22 3k. Paez is the fastest Quaker to cover that distance this year, besting Philip Cawkwell's 8:23 run from Friday. Paez placed 8th out of 15 in his heat.
Jeff Weinstein also raced the 3k at Navy today. His 8:31 put him 14th in the 15 man heat. It remains to be seen how Weinstein, trying to mount a comeback from a serious injury, will perform at his mile specialty when he finally steps down to the shorter distance. His speed at the end of the race was clearly not there, as three runners finished less than five seconds ahead of the senior.
While Junior Ryan Cunningham ran to a 4:15 finish at Penn State — a time well above his goal time of 4:08, Matt Chylack ran a very impressive 4:13 at Navy (6th place) and freshman Steve Piscatelli clocked a 4:15. These performances are promising indicators of fast miles to come from other quarters of the Quakers squad.
The good: Comeback! Over the last two seasons, time and time again I've watched Penn fall behind before halftime, claw back through the next 10-15 minutes and then fail to overtake the lead and win. Forget that it was against Brown for one moment — just the fact that the team showed to themselves that they could battle back and finish was important moving forward.
The bad: Brown's Tucker Halpern. He put together a little run where it didn't look like he could miss a three-pointer. But the final stat-line didn't look so good. 4-for-13 overall, 3-for-10 from deep. That's a lot of missed threes. Even worse, though, Miles Cartwright was 1-for-7 from deep, 2-for-12 overall. As they say, know when to hold 'em, know when to pass to Jack Eggleston (11-for-15 overall, 3-for-5 from three).
The ugly: Brown's final seven minutes. The miscues are as follows:
Fouling Conor Turley's layup with 46 seconds left, and giving him a free-throw shot, which he made, tying the game and sending it into overtime
Incurring a 5-second violation on the Bears' inbounds pass with 40-seconds left, turning the ball over and giving Penn a final shot.
Allowing two Penn dunks (Eggleston and Turley) in overtime. That's a lot of momentum.
And who could forget that airball free throw from Brown's Tyler Ponticelli. That was pretty ugly too.
Back in December, Jack Eggleston surpassed the 1,000-point career scoring mark. Let's not forget, however, that he still has 12 games to play to move his way up Penn's all-time leading scorers list.
Friday against Yale, Eggleston's 13 points pushed him above Corky Calhoun's 1,066, and Saturday against Brown he surpassed Jeff Schiffner and Richard Heylmun.
Next stop? Steve Bilsky. Eggleston needs 13 points to tie Penn's Athletic Director's 1,108.
Based on his average of 13.5 points per game, he is projected to hit the 1,250 mark and sit around 16th in the all-time list. But that's just projection...
I'm here with Calder Silcox and Matt Flegenheimer at the Palestra for the second game of the Ivy season. The Quakers look to improve their undefeated Ivy record to 2-0.
Follow along below or Click Here to open in a new window.
How does your own fan satisfaction after last night compare with that of the robots at statsheet.com and their algorithms? Will you be "very happy" if Penn beats Brown tonight? these are all burning questions.
Just for reference, compare that with where the Quakers faithful were at after last year's Ivy opener against Yale, after the jump.
Most things are good after you start off the Ivy League season with an effort like the Quakers' tonight in their 66-58 win over Yale. But it's not all good...
The Good: Penn's biggest advantage came at the free throw line, where the Quakers converted 22-25 freebies including 13-13 in the last 5:23 to hang on to the lead. Penn's free throws have been up and down this season, but mostly down, so it was a great sign to see them sink those tonight, especially down the stretch. By contrast, Yale only took 11 free throws (though it made 10). Honorable mention: Penn's balanced offense, which saw four players reach double figures (Cartwright-18, Rosen-16, Eggleston-13, Bernardini-10).
The Bad: Despite holding an 11-point lead at halftime, Penn's second-half defense couldn't keep up the same frenetic energy that was so successful in the first half. Whether it was fatigue or failed execution, the Quakers let Yale back in the game when they could have shut the door and coasted down the stretch. The Bulldogs outscored the Quakers 20-8 in the paint in the second half (28-26 overall).
The Ugly: Allowing Yale's Greg Mangano to get his hands on the ball enough to score a game-high 20 points and eight rebounds. While the junior is the leading scorer for the Bulldogs, he only averages 15.1 points per game. Even still, the Quakers' first-half D held Mangano to seven points, so his 13 point explosion was well...ugly.
It was a very solid overall effort by the Quakers tonight en route to a 66-58 win over Yale and a 1-0 start to the Ivy schedule. Below, you've got Jerome Allen (left), Jack Eggleston (middle) and Miles Cartwright (right). And below that, Yale coach James Jones.
Greetings Penn faithful. I'm here at the Palestra for the Quakers' Ivy League opener against Yale. The Bulldogs are already 2-0 in the Ivy League after sweeping Brown, but the Red and Blue are coming off an emotional win against Big 5 rival St. Joseph's. I'll be joined tonight by Kevin Esteves and Ricky Katz to bring you live updates as Penn tries to kick off its Ancient Eight slate on the right foot.
As snow continues to blanket Philadelphia, everybody on campus is getting ready for the beginning of the long-awaited Ivy season. How much improved are the Quakers after last year's fiasco? Tonight should be a good indication against a decent Yale team. But how is campus preparing (other than shoveling)?
The signs of Zack Rosen are plastered all over campus once again, including one outside of Pottruck advertising that student game tickets can now be bought at the gym. That's a whole 4 blocks west of the Palestra, where they usually are sold. Looks like Penn Athletics is taking a page out of the Horace Greeley book: "Go West, young man." But actually, props to the administrators for coming out to where the students actually are to sell tickets. They can be bought at the membership services desk.
I stopped in at the desk today to pick up my game ticket, and the woman selling them told me that they had probably doled out about 10 so far this week. Okay.
We also put together a neat Ivy season preview with blurbs on each team and league leaders, so pick up Friday's print edition of the DP to check it out.
We'll be liveblogging all the action this weekend. Tonight is Kevin Esteves, Rumblin' Noah Rosenstein and Ricky Katz. Tomorrow night I'll be joined by Megan Soisson and there might even be a guest appearance from executive editor Lauren Plotnick.