Penn again hits the road for a challenging Ivy League weekend

Last year, Penn lost just two Ivy League basketball games all season in sharing the regular-season title with Harvard, then beat the Crimson in the Ivy League tournament.

This season, Penn dropped its first three Ivy League games before grinding out a 72-70 win Saturday at Columbia in a game that wasn’t decided until the Lions missed a last-second, mid-range jumper.

This is the new life in the Ivy League for Penn, with no easy W’s.

Penn (13-7, 1-3 Ivy) understands that most or all games will be like the battle with Columbia. Even though the teams still have 10 more Ivy League games left, no one can be counted out to earn one of the four spots in the league tournament.

“This league one through eight has been as good as it has ever been,” Penn coach Steve Donahue said earlier this week before practice.

As an example of that, Harvard is 3-1 and was the preseason Ivy League favorite and Dartmouth is 1-3, but those two teams have already split. Princeton, which owns two wins over Penn, is the only unbeaten team at 4-0.

Donahue feels the strength of the league is that there are veteran players on every team, with 34 of last year’s 40 starters back.

This weekend, Penn visits Brown (13-7, 1-3) on Friday and Yale (13-4, 3-1) on Saturday.

Besides being the Quakers’ second straight weekend of Ivy League road games, it means Penn will have played five of its first six league games on the road. The offshoot is that six of the final eight will be home.

Penn lost at Cornell, 80-71, last Friday and appeared relieved after earning its first win at Columbia the next evening.

“We have been looking for one [win], and after a tough weekend against two really talented teams that can hurt you in so many ways, coming out with that win on Saturday is huge for our progress as a team in the tough Ivy League this year,” said 6-foot-8 junior AJ Brodeur, who scored a season-high 24 points against Columbia.

Now Penn has to face a Brown team that lost twice to Yale by a total of 11 points, beat Dartmouth, and lost its last game at Harvard, 68-47. The Bears are led by 6-4 sophomore guard Desmond Cambridge, who averages 16.5 points.

The Saturday game at Yale should be even more challenging. The Bulldogs bounced back from a 65-49 loss at Harvard to win at Dartmouth, 89-68, behind a career-high 31 points from 6-6 junior Myie Oni, who like Brodeur, was a first-team all-Ivy choice last year.

“Oni is a good scorer, passer, defender and rebounder and Yale is a very athletic team that plays well at home,” Donahue said.

Amplifying that point, Yale is 6-0 at home this year, just another example of the challenge Penn faces this weekend in a another tough Ivy League road trip.