Men's Basketball Closes 2012-13 With Princeton

PHILADELPHIA - The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team closes out the 2012-13 season in traditional fashion, as longtime Ivy League rival Princeton comes to The Palestra Tuesday night. The Quakers and Tigers will tip off at 7:30 p.m., following the Penn-Princeton women's game that will start at 5 p.m.

GAME 31 - PENN (9-21, 6-7) at PRINCETON (16-11, 9-4)
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 * 7:30 p.m.
The Palestra (Philadelphia)
TV: PennAthletics.com (there is a charge for this service)
Radio: WNTP 990 AM (Brian Seltzer, Vince Curran)

Click here for Live Stats!

Penn Game Notes (PDF) / Princeton Game Notes (PDF)

The Series with Princeton
*The most historic rivalry in the Ivy League, the Quakers and the Tigers have met 227 times in men's basketball, with Penn holding a 123-104 advantage in the series.

*That said, Princeton has won two in a row and seven of the last eight meetings over Penn. (Prior to that, Penn had won five in a row, eight of nine, and 13 of 15.)

*Penn won the last meeting that took place here at The Palestra, 82-67 on Jan. 30, 2012. Princeton had won the previous three played here before last season.

*The first meeting this season took place exactly two months ago, with Princeton defeating Penn 65-53 at Jadwin Gym. T.J. Bray hit six three-pointers en route to a game-high 23 points, while Ian Hummer scored 13 and Denton Koon added 10. For Penn, Tony Hicks had 16 points to lead the Quakers, while Darien Nelson-Henry scored 11.

The Ivy Standings...
*Princeton will finish second behind Harvard no matter what happens tonight. The Tigers will end up 10-4 with a win, 9-5 with a loss.

*Penn will tie Brown for fourth place with a win tonight, both teams at 7-7 (the Quakers swept the Bears this season). With a loss, Penn finishes alone in fifth place at 6-8.

About Princeton
The Tigers (16-11, 9-4 Ivy) entered last weekend in first place in the Ivy League standings, but lost to Yale (71-66) and Brown (80-67) and saw Harvard pass them in the standings and earn the title. Ian Hummer continues to be a frontrunner for Ivy League Player of the Year honors (the All-Ivy teams and postseason honors will be announced tomorrow); he is second in the Ivy League in scoring (16.2 ppg) and assists (4.1 apg), and fifth in rebounding (6.4 rpg). Denton Koon is averaging 10.6 points per game, while T.J. Bray is averaging 9.8 ppg and has 99 assists.

Home is Where the Wins Are
Penn entered the 2012-13 season with 798 wins at The Palestra, which opened in 1927. In an informal survey of the other NCAA Division I programs, only Washington (921 wins at Hec Edmundson Pavilion) and the Quakers' opponent on January 2, Butler (812 wins at Hinkle Fieldhouse), boast more wins in their current home than the Quakers. The Edmundson Pavilion was opened in 1927, while the Bulldogs opened Hinkle in 1928.

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.

Fire on the Line
Hicks has been particularly prolific at the foul line during Ivy play. He went 0-of-3 in the first P-P matchup; in the 12 Ivy League games since then, he has gone 40-of-45 (.889 percent).

Balancing Act
Eleven different players had at least one double-figure scoring game for Penn this season; three different players (and nearly a fourth) had double-doubles this season; nine different players led the Quakers in scoring in a game; and nine different players led Penn in rebounds in a game this season.

Quaker Notemeal at Yale
*For the third straight game, Penn had fewer turnovers (13) than its opponent (14).

*Sophomore Henry Brooks led Penn with five rebounds, as he had done the night before; he became the ninth different player to lead the Quakers in boards in a game.

Notemeal at Brown
*Penn earned a season sweep of Brown for the second year in a row.

*For the first time in five games, Penn's bench points (23) were more than its opponent (13).

*For the first time this season, Penn won a game when it shot a worse percentage from the field than its opponent (previously 0-15).

*Brown set an opponent high in the Jerome Allen coaching era with 26 turnovers.

*Penn had 10 steals for the second straight game; the Quakers only other double-figure steal totals came in the first two games.

*Junior Miles Cartwright scored a game-high 25 points, giving him 53 in two games against Brown this season.

*It was Cartwright's seventh 20-point game this season (13th career) and his 18th double-figure scoring game this season (51st career).

*Cartwright scored the game's final eight points, and also had a stretch in the first half where he scored 15 of Penn's 17 points.

*Cartwright was 4-of-4 on three-pointers, the second time in three games a Penn player has done that (also Dau Jok vs. Dartmouth on March 1).

*Sophomore Patrick Lucas-Perry tied a season/career high with 15 points, his fourth double-figure scoring game this season, and also set a career best with three assists.

*Junior Cameron Gunter set a season/career high with 18 minutes played, scoring four points and grabbing a board.