Men's Basketball at Brown, Yale This Weekend

PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team has one more Ivy League weekend to go, as the Quakers travel to Brown and Yale this Friday and Saturday. Tip time for both games is 7 p.m. Penn can move into third place in the Ivy League standings with wins this weekend, as both the Bears and the Bulldogs enter the weekend 6-6 in conference play while Penn is 5-6.

GAME 29 - (PENN 8-20, 5-6 Ivy) at BROWN (12-14, 6-6)
Friday, March 8, 2013 * 7 p.m.
Pizzitola Sports Center (Providence, R.I.)
TV: MyRITV (Eric Murphy, Abu Bakr) / BrownBears.com (there is a charge for this service)
RADIO: WXPN 88.5 FM (Matt Leon, Stan Pawlak)

Penn Game Notes (PDF) / Brown Game Notes (PDF) / Yale Game Notes (PDF)

The Brown-Yale Trip
Penn has made this Brown-Yale trip 56 times in Ivy League history. The Quakers have swept this road weekend 26 times, split it 24 times -- including last year -- and been swept six times (though not since 2003-04).

The Brown Series
*The Quakers and the Bears have met 123 times, with Penn holding a 102-21 series lead. (Game-by-game info on page 45 of Penn's 2012-13 Fact Book.)

*Penn has won the last four games played between these two teams at the Pizzitola Sports Center, including a 54-43 win last year and an 80-78 overtime victory two years ago.

*Penn defeated Brown earlier this season, 71-48, at The Palestra. Miles Cartwright scored a career-high 28 points in the win, while Tony Hicks added 15. For Brown, Matt Sullivan scored 15 points and Sean McGonagill added 12, while Cedric Kuakumensah had seven blocked shots.

The Yale Series
*The Quakers and the Bulldogs have met 217 times previously, with Penn holding a 146-71 lead in the series. (Game-by-game info on pages 50-51 of Penn's 2012-13 Fact Book.)

*Penn has long struggled at the Lee Amphitheater; in fact, the Quakers are just 5-6 in New Haven since 2002. Last year, Yale gained a 60-53 win here in Connecticut.

*Yale escaped the Palestra with a 68-59 win earlier this season, using a 10-0 run to break open a tie game late. Armani Cotton led four Yale players in double figures with 15 points. For Penn, Henry Brooks scored 12 points, Tony Hicks had 11, and Dau Jok scored 10.

Ivy Honors For Hicks
Freshman Tony Hicks has been named Ivy League Rookie of the Week each of the last two weeks, becoming the third different Penn player to earn the honor this season (after Jamal Lewis and Darien Nelson-Henry). Hicks has been simply outstanding over Penn's last four games, averaging 23.8 points per game and shooting 35 of 63 (55.6 percent) from the field in that time.

He'll Take The Charity
Junior Miles Cartwright started the season by going 12-of-19 at the foul line-unusual, given that he began the season at almost 80 percent for his career. Since then, however, he has returned to form-in fact, he has surpassed it. Cartwright enters the weekend having gone 115-of-131 (.878) over his last 23 games. He had made 26 in a row, dating  back to Jan. 23 at Temple, before missing his first free throw on February 15 at Harvard; he also had a streak of 21 straight free throws earlier this season that ended at Wagner.

The Latest to 1,000
Cartwright scored 15 points at Cornell on Feb. 22, and in the process he moved past the 1,000-point mark for his career. He is the 38th player in Penn history to reach the milestone, and the first since Tyler Bernardini did it during the 2010-11 season. Cartwright enters this weekend with 1,034 career points.

It's Worth Noting...
*Penn has had nine different players lead it in scoring in a game this season, and eight different players have led the team in rebounding in a game.

*Eleven different players have had a double-figure scoring game for Penn this season.

*Penn is 6-0 in the Jerome Allen era when holding an opponent below 50 points, and 23-6 when holding its opponent below 60.

*Penn has had more assists than turnovers six times in the last 12 games, after accomplishing that feat just twice in the first 16 contests.

*Penn has matched or outrebounded its opponent five straight times, six of the last seven, and 10 of the last 16 games after doing it just twice in the first 12 contests.

*Five of Penn's last 10 opponents have shot below 36 percent from the field; the Quakers lead the Ivy League in conference field-goal percentage defense (39.9 percent).

*Freshman Darien Nelson-Henry has scored at least eight points in 11 of Penn's last 15 games, with nine double-figure scoring performances during that period; he had a double-double against Harvard last Saturday, his second this season.

*Nelson-Henry also has averaged 6.2 rebounds per game the last 14 contests, after averaging 2.5 rpg in his first 14 appearances; he had nine rebounds in both games last weekend, at Cornell and Columbia.

*Junior Dau Jok entered this season with nine career points and seven rebounds; he entered the January 5 game at La Salle with 37 career points and 29 career boards; in the last 16 games, he has scored 75 points and snared 41 rebounds.

*Junior Cameron Gunter entered the Harvard/Dartmouth road trip two weeks ago with 10 points and 10 rebounds for the season; he has 20 points and 16 rebounds in the six games since then.

*Gunter made three free throws at Dartmouth; amazingly, they were his first made free throws in almost exactly a year, as the last time he made one was Feb. 17, 2012 against Cornell.