M. Cagers Face Quakers, Tigers, Oh My!

The Harvard men's basketball team travels to the Ivy League's version of Dixie this weekend when it faces Penn (12-8, 7-2 Ivy) and Princeton (16-5, 8-1) in two crucial rematches. Harvard (14-8, 6-4) hopes to avenge earlier losses to each team and, in so doing, keep alive its fading hopes of an Ivy League title.

The weekend should evoke at least a mild sense of deja vu for Harvard's players. Two weekends ago, the Crimson faced another big weekend against the Tigers and the Quakers with important ramifications for the Ivy League race.

But in losing both contests, Harvard assured itself an uphill climb towards an Ancient Eight title.

"We're not really concerned about either team, because we feel we beat ourselves," senior guard/forward Mike Gilmore said. "We gave up a lot of open shots and easy baskets."

Against Penn, which Harvard faces tonight at the Palestra in Philadelphia, standout performances by seniors Ira Bowman (29 points, 11 rebounds) and Donald Moxley (16 points, 9 rebounds) put the game out of reach for the Crimson. Stopping those two, along with senior center Tim Krug, will be the Crimson's main defensive focus.

"Penn's a real athletic team with some really talented players," junior center Chris Grancio said. "They're just going to push the ball up the floor and let their talent take over."

Although Penn has lost its last two Friday night games--to Dartmouth and Yale--Harvard faces a daunting task in trying to beat the Quakers at home.

Penn has lost only three of its last 49 home games, giving it the seventh-best home record in the country among Division I schools over the last four seasons.

If Harvard is to win, it will need junior forward Kyle Snowden. to come up big. Snowden has been on fire of late, scoring 26 points and pulling down 19 rebounds en route to Ivy League Player of the Week Honors.

But the memory of Snowden--Harvard's leading scorer--tallying just twenty total points in the last Penn-Princeton weekend is still fresh.

In the Crimson's first game against the Tigers, a 44-49 loss, Princeton coach Pete Carril's disciplined offense ultimately proved impregnable. A three-pointer by guard Sydney Johnson halted an end-of-game Crimson rally and sealed the victory for the Tigers.

Harvard must find a way to break Princeton's screens and stick with its roaming players, something that was lacking two weekends ago.

"This is the second time we've seen Princeton's offense, so we'll be prepared," Grancio said. "If we do what we have to do defensively, and follow the principles that have gotten us 14 wins, we should be okay."

The Princeton game pits two of the nations' top defensive teams against each other, so it promises to be a low-scoring affair. Princeton is first in the nation in scoring defense (51.1 ppg) while Harvard comes in at number four (59.5 ppg).

This weekend would have considerably less significance had last weekend--when Penn and Dartmouth were respectively upset by Yale and Cornell--not happened.

Harvard's best shot involves a rather complicated but plausible turn of events. Harvard has to beat Penn and Princeton and hope that Dartmouth, currently one game ahead of Harvard, also beats Penn and Princeton.

If that happens, the Crimson would need to defeat Yale and Brown next weekend and pray for Penn to beat Princeton and either Brown or Yale to beat Dartmouth.

That scenario, the most attainable of many, would leave four teams at 10-4 and tied for the Ivy League title.

"We're going to need a little bit of help from other teams," Gilmore said. "If we win the rest of our games, that's all we can ask." IVY STANDINGS IVY  OVERALL Team  W  L  PCT  W  L  PCT Princeton  8  1  .889  16  5  .762 Penn  7  2  .778  12  8  .600 Darmouth  7  3  .700  14  8  .636 Harvard  6  4  .600  14  8  .636 Cornell  4  6  .400  8  13  .381 Brown  3  7  .300  8  14  .364 Yale  3  7  .300  8  14  .364 Columbia  1  9  .100  5  17  .227