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GAME NOTES: Familiar Ivy League foes clash at the famed Palestra in Philadelphia tonight, as the Penn Quakers welcome the Princeton Tigers to town for a rare mid-week meeting.

Since losing to Maine the first week of January, the Tigers had been cruising along with seven straight wins and had opened conference play with five victories in as many opportunities. However, on Saturday night Princeton ran into an angry Cornell club that slipped by with a 48-45 win. The Tigers are now 5-1 in the Ivy League and all alone in second place.

As for the Quakers, they replaced their head coach in mid-season and are now under the direction of interim head coach and former star player Jerome Allen. On a positive note, Penn did manage to record three wins over the course of four games recently and handed the Big Red their first league loss of the season. However, Saturday night saw the team suffer a 66-62 setback against Columbia at home, which means the Quakers are now 3-3 against Ivy opponents.

Penn comes into this contest holding a 122-98 advantage in the all-time series with the Tigers, a relationship that dates back to 1903. The Quakers had taken five in a row from Princeton before the Tigers posted a 59-56 victory last year at The Palestra. The schools will close out the regular season against each other yet again on March 9th in New Jersey.

Princeton made just eight field goals in both the first and second halves in the meeting with Cornell three nights ago, but managed to make the contest close even though it trailed by as many as nine points in the first half. Douglas Davis, the only player to hit on more than three field goals for the home team, finished with a team-best 20 points, which means he nearly outscored all of his teammates combined. Not much of an offensive team again this season, the Tigers are posting a mere 58,6 ppg on 42.9 percent shooting from the field. However, the saving grace for this group is that they have one of the most suffocating defenses in all of college basketball, giving up a paltry 52.3 ppg. Davis, a 42.2 percent shooter from behind the three-point line this season, is putting up 13.9 ppg to pace his team in that department.

After their big upset of Cornell the night before, it only made sense that the Quakers were going to have a letdown in their meeting with Columbia barely 24 hours later. Mike Howlett led four starters in double figures with his 14 points, Rob Belcore added 13 points, four rebounds and four assists, while Jack Eggleston and Zack Rosen tallied 11 points apiece, but also combined for nine of the team's 14 turnovers. Part of the problem was that Penn shot only 5-of-16 behind the three-point line, the other issue was coming away with a mere two offensive rebounds. For the season, the Quakers are making just 30.3 percent of their three-point tries and shooting only 40.1 percent from the floor overall, compared to 48.2 percent for the opposition. Combining for nearly half of the team's 62.2 ppg to this point, Rosen pours in a team-best 16.7 ppg and Eggleston another 12.8 ppg, the former handing out 82 assists and the latter clearing 6.3 rpg to pace the squad in those two categories as well.

Following the Quakers in the last week has been a roller coaster of a ride and it will probably involve even more twists and turns tonight, although it still should be an easy win for the Tigers.