Quakers Welcome Dartmouth And Harvard To The Palestra
By Matt Leon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – The Penn Quakers will be back home this weekend, hosting Dartmouth and Harvard in Ivy League action.
Penn (7-19 overall, 4-5 Ivy League) has four Ivy weekends in the books and all four have ended in splits. Last weekend Penn rolled Cornell in Ithaca, 79-71, on Friday night. However, they then went ice cold on Saturday, losing to Columbia in New York City, 58-41.
"Obviously, we can't ever settle on a split," Penn head coach Jerome Allen tells KYW Newsradio. "But I thought, to the guys credit, Friday night they did an excellent job of putting it all together, primarily the second half at Cornell. Just limiting them to 28 points and limiting them to seven transition points when we gave up almost twenty of them in the first half."
Freshman guard Tony Hicks had 29 points in the win over Cornell. He added 19 in the loss to Columbia.
The Quakers picked up a win in their first meeting against Dartmouth, grabbing a 67-57 decision in Hanover, New Hampshire, on February 16th.
"I just think defensively, in the second-half of that game, the guys just left it on the floor," Allen says. "They played extremely hard."
Jerome Allen Interview
Dartmouth is 6-18 on the season and just 2-9 in the Ancient 8, but Allen expects a battle to start the weekend.
"I think Coach (Paul) Cormier has done an excellent job of recruiting guys that fit his system," Allen says. "They share the ball, they play hard, they defend. They've pretty much been in every game in league play and they've won on the road, so it should be a very interesting match."
Saturday's opponent, Harvard, leads the Ivy League with a 9-1 mark. The Crimson are 17-7 overall and they beat Penn on February 15th in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 73-54.
Friday's game with Dartmouth tips-off at 7:00pm while the game on Saturday with Harvard starts at 6:00pm. Both games will be at the Palestra.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
