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Monday, January 16, 2006
'Pards visit Penn
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Lafayette at Penn, 7 p.m.: A week or two ago, this didn't look like much of a matchup. But after Lafayette's back-to-back wins last week, the Leopards visit to the famed Palestra looks a lot more interesting. The Leopards have been lighting up the scoreboard, averaging 83 points in those two wins. Toss in the Mount Saint Mary's game and they have scored over 75 in three of the last four.

Those last two were at home, where the Leopards are 6-2 on the season. The road has been a different matter. Lafayette has won only two of seven away from Kirby.

Penn, meanwhile, comes in having won five of its last six. The lone loss in that stretch was at Fordham, where Lafayette has also lost, by the way. The Quakers are only 5-3 at home, but the losses were to Temple, Villanova and Colorado. Penn's other loss thus far was to Duke.

But the Quakers wins have not been all that impressive either. Aside from a win at 8-6 Hawaii, the Quakers' victims in the recent hot streak were just a notch above the Little Sisters of the Poor -- BYU-Hawaii, The Citadel and a sweep of two mediocre Ivy League teams-- Cornell and Columbia-- over the weekend.

In those two Ivy games, the Quakers two top guns -- 6-2 junior guard Ibrahim Jaaber and 6-7 junior forward Mark Zoller -- were on fire. Jaaber, who averages 18.8 ppg, was 7-10 in both games, scoring 18 against Cornell, 20 against Columbia. Zoller went 8-9 for 21 against Cornell, 6-9 for 12 against Columbia.

The Quakers shot better than 50 percent in both and won both of those games by over 30 points, downing Cornell 84-44 on Friday night and winning 87-55 at Columbia on Saturday.

Those lopsided wins allowed Penn coach Fran Dunphy to spread out the minutes. Jaaber (32) was the only Quaker to play more than 26 minutes Friday night. Guard Eric Osmundson (31) was the only Penn player who saw more than 26 minutes at Columbia. That probably means Lafayette won't have the better legs advantage it might have hoped for with the Quakers playing for the third time in four days.

But it does mean the Quakers will have had very little preparation time to get ready for the Leopards, who like to switch things up a lot on defense.

The limited preparation time won't mean the coaches are not prepared. Lafayette's Fran O'Hanlon used to be a Dunphy assistant. They don't need to watch a whole lot of film to know what the other guy is going to try to do.

A win could do wonders for the Leopards confidence level, with a trip to Bucknell on Wednesday, followed by a Saturday home date with Lehigh.
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Published at 10:12 AM by Hoop Time.
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