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GAME NOTES: The Princeton Tigers try to complete the season sweep of the Yale Bulldogs as the two Ivy League programs battle at Jadwin Gym tonight.

At this stage of the season, the Ivy League schools typically play on back-to- back nights on Fridays and Saturdays, but the Tigers took a break from that routine on Tuesday night when they settled into The Palestra in Philadelphia to take on the Penn Quakers. That meeting resulted in a 58-51 win for the visitors and marked the eighth victory in the last nine outings for the Tigers. In fact Princeton, which is now 6-1 in league play and trails only Cornell in the standings, has lost only twice since suffering through a four- game slide in late November/early December.

As for the Bulldogs, their most recent outing took place six days ago when they hosted the Dartmouth Big Green in New Haven, an encounter that resulted in a 69-56 win for the home team. The victory was the second in the last three games for Yale and evened the squad's conference mark at 4-4.

The first meeting of the season between these two back on January 30th was won by the Tigers in a 58-45 final, which means the all-time series now stands at 140-81 in favor of Princeton.

Yale shot only 31.3 percent from the field in the first half last Saturday against the Big Green, but after the break both the offense and defense came alive for the hosts as they knocked down 52 percent from the floor and held Dartmouth to a mere 18.8 percent. Michael Sands tallied 20 points and eight rebounds for the Bulldogs, while Greg Mangano and Alex Zampier chipped in 12 and 11 points, respectively, as the squad held the visitors to just 33.8 percent shooting from the field for the game. Despite the scoring explosion by Sands, he is still averaging just 10.7 ppg on the season, which is second behind the 17.8 ppg put up by Zampier. Sands has more than held his own in the paint with his 5.9 rpg, his close proximity to the basket making it easier for him to shoot 49.4 percent from the floor. However, the team as a whole is making only 42.7 percent from the field overall and a meager 29.2 percent behind the three-point line at the moment.

Princeton scored the first points of the game against the Quakers on Tuesday night and never looked back, shooting 54.2 percent from the floor in the first half and an even 50 percent for the entire game. Dan Mavraides put up a game- high 24 points, hitting on all but one of his 11 free-throw attempts, while Ian Hummer came off the bench to post 14 points and six rebounds in the victory. Zach Finley chipped in with nine points and six boards before fouling out, although the team's leading scorer on the season, Douglas Davis (13.2 ppg), was held scoreless on the night. Davis, who missed all four of his field goal attempts, is shooting an impressive 41.9 percent behind the three-point line thus far and when combined with Mavraides (11.9 ppg), who has made 36.1 percent of his chances, the duo has accounted for 88 of the team's 142 triples thus far. But really, defense is what makes this machine run, as they limit opponents to a mere 52.2 ppg, the best in the nation.

Trying to break up a defense like the one the Tigers are putting on the floor these days is a tough job for any opponent, and since Yale has been less than spectacular on the road this year, don't expect to see the Bulldogs get it done tonight.