Philadelphia Inquirer on the Fall of Penn and Rise of Cornell

A reference to Cornell Basketball in the Philadelphia Inquirer today:

After losing to Dartmouth and Harvard last weekend, the Penn basketball team finds itself in sixth place in the Ivy League with five games remaining.

Picked to finish second behind defending champ and current league leader Cornell (8-2), the Quakers will be hard-pressed to move that far up in the standings. At 8-15 overall and 4-5 in the conference, they'll have to jump over Columbia, Yale and Dartmouth, who are tied for second place with 6-4 records. At 5-4, Princeton is also ahead of Penn.

The Quakers will host Yale and Brown (1-9) this weekend.

"You just have to try to evaluate things and get better," said Penn coach Glen Miller, whose roster includes only two seniors in guard Kevin Egee and center Cameron Lewis. "I don't know what else you can do as a coach, or what else you can do as a player. Everybody has to get better. Unless somebody has some magic dust here - give it to me, and I'll be happy to use it."

Penn, third in the Ivy League last season, is now two years removed from its last title year. Only the league champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

That Cornell is on the verge of repeating is no major surprise - the Big Red had just about everybody back. Nor are the Quakers' struggles as a new group tries to find its way.

The players, however, were expecting more from themselves.

"I didn't see it going this way," said freshman guard Zack Rosen, who leads the Ivy League in assists (5.2 per game) and assist/turnover ratio (2.29). "But we're here, and it's our fault. Nobody else's. We're not getting it done, and we have to figure out a way to get it done. Somewhere, somehow, we're going to have to find a way to bring it, and take that into next year."

The 6-1 Rosen is just one reason that Penn fans can look for better things ahead. Then there's Tyler Bernardini, the 6-6 sophomore who was the Ivy League rookie of the year last season. And his classmates, 6-8 forward Jack Eggleston and 6-0 guard Harrison Gaines, have room to grow as well.

"We don't have that one guy who's going to make plays for us," said Miller, who hopes to have 6-4 junior guard Darren Smith (knee) and 6-9 junior Andreas Schreiber (shoulder) back after the duo sat out this season with injuries.

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After this weekend, the Quakers will complete their season with games at Cornell and Columbia on March 6 and 7, and a date with Princeton at home on March 10.