In one of the best Penn-Princeton games in years, the Quakers held on to beat their arch rivals, 62-55, in overtime. Penn jumped out to a 9-2 lead behind a hard-nosed layup by Harrison Gaines and 5 quick points on jumpers by Tyler Bernardini. Princeton recovered quickly with a three-pointer by Dan Mavraides and a lay-up by center Pawel Buczak that sparked a 8-0 run.

These days, it only comes around once in a blue moon -- like fresh bagels at Hill House brunch or a Philadelphia championship. The stars have aligned, however, to give meaning to a rivalry that hasn't seen real action since a heart-pounding Penn comeback over the Tigers in 2005, when Quakers faithful rushed the court after their team rallied from an 18-point second-half deficit at the Palestra.

On the surface, the ECAC championships - intended to be the final tune-up before the outdoor season - may not immediately reveal much about the future for the men's tennis team. The squad entered the tournament as the fourth seed and left the tournament as the fourth seed.

Just the day after one typically filled with surprises - if you can call getting a rose from that boy who has a crush on you a "surprise" - the Penn wrestling team was hoping to add one of its own by upsetting No. 3 Cornell in Ithaca, N.Y. Unfortunately, everything went as expected yesterday in the Quakers' 24-9 loss to the Big Red, just as it had in their 32-6 win over Columbia Saturday.

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 14 - The magic surrounding Penn basketball hasn't been what it once was. But as a youthful team that has dealt with more than its fair share of struggles and setbacks, the Quakers will settle for a slightly humbler existence - one as world-class escape artists.

Maybe just for a week, Penn men's basketball coach Glen Miller wished he had never left Providence, R.I., for the big, bad streets of West Philadelphia. "Penn's not an easy place to coach if you're losing," Miller said. "I think that's an understatement." Miller, who left Brown to take the job at Penn before the 2006-07 season, led his team into the Bears' Pizzitola Center Friday night with more than one monkey on his back.

Without much firepower on offense, there's a surefire way to tell whether the Penn women's basketball team will win or lose. When the Quakers allow their opponents to score at least 50 points in a game, they have a woeful 2-14 record. Going into this weekend's home games against Brown and Yale, the team had held opponents to less than 50 points in a game only three times.

Jerome Allen's best Big 5 memory goes all the way back to his first game in the unique, historic Philadelphia City Series. In the former Penn basketball guard's first career game against Temple, with the Quakers down by one as the clock wound down at the Palestra, Allen stood wide open in the corner of the court and watched teammate Vince Curran heave a turnaround jumper from 15-feet that rattled in and out.

This was not how the men's squash team hoped to end the regular season. Last week, the No. 7 Quakers had reason to celebrate after a narrow loss to No. 5 Harvard and a thrilling comeback victory over No. 8 Dartmouth. After a crushing 9-0 loss to No. 6 Rochester yesterday, though, that momentum is gone and Penn must regroup heading into the national team championships this weekend.

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 14 - The magic surrounding Penn basketball hasn't been what it once was. But as a youthful team that has dealt with more than its fair share of struggles and setbacks, the Quakers will settle for a slightly humbler existence - one as world-class escape artists.

Heading into the season ranked No. 2, the women's squash team had its eyes on returning to the finals of the Howe Cup with dreams of winning the national championship. Unfortunately for the Quakers, they failed to reach that goal this weekend. Although Penn won 8-1 over Cornell in the first round, its run was stopped by Harvard in the semifinals Saturday in Cambridge, Mass.

Columbia's wrestling facilities may be much closer to the iconic building, but recently it has been the Cornell grapplers putting the "Empire" in "Empire State." Despite their name, the Lions (2-10, 0-4 EIWA) are much tamer than the Big Red (8-2, 1-0), who rank third nationally.

Forgive Brown coach Jesse Agel for sounding less than concerned about his backcourt. "We'll do our best to free our guys up," Agel said of his guards, waving off the question. Though Brown's dismal 0-6 Ivy record (6-14 overall) has a lot to do with how different the Bears' perimeter looks this year - Agel lost his All-Ivy guard duo of Mark McAndrew and Damon Huffman to graduation last spring - his squad's outside presence isn't what he'll need against Penn (5-13, 1-3 Ivy) tonight in Providence, R.

After beating Brown by 21 Friday, the Quakers went into New Haven, Conn., and hung tough for their third Ivy League win, 68-63, over Yale. Harrison Gaines was everywhere in the first half, racking up 14 points and four boards, two of which came on the offensive end on one possession that resulted in two made free throws.

Lately, the Temple-Saint Joseph's series has done wonders for the Owls' postseason prospects. The two teams met in the Atlantic-10 tournament finals last year, and Temple's dramatic victory earned it the league's automatic NCAA bid. Similarly, last night's matchup was less about Big 5 bragging rights than about the A-10 horse race.

If momentum is what the Quakers were looking for, they surely have it. Coming off a huge win over Cornell last Saturday, the Penn women's basketball team is looking to continue its confidence in this weekend's matchups. The Quakers (4-15, 1-4 Ivy) will host Brown tonight and Yale tomorrow.

There is no conference championship tournament in the Ivy League, but this weekend's ECAC Men's Tennis Championships - in which fourth-seeded Penn will take on fifth-seeded Cornell in the first round - sure seems like one. The 2009 version of the annual tournament, which will take place at Harvard's Murr Center today through Sunday, has an Ivy League flavor, with the entire Ancient Eight among the 10 teams invited.