With the Harvard men's basketball team journeying--even at this very moment--to Philadelphia for its annual Penn-Princeton pilgrimage, the basketball notebook takes time to look the statistical history of the two rivalries.
Harvard (3-8 overall this year, 0-1 Ivy) has faced Penn 108 times since 1902 and come away with only 19 victories. Included in the Quakers' 89 triumphs is a 19-game winning streak in the '70s.
The Crimson's 77-75 victory at the Palestra a year ago was the cagers' first triumph over Penn since the 1977-78 season, and the first away from Cambridge since the 1967-68 campaign.
Meanwhile, Princeton holds an 81-32 series edge over the Crimson. The Tigers had a 21-game streak of their own during the 85-year history of the rivalry.
The two teams split last year, with Harvard winning, 60-50, at Princeton's Jadwin Gym to complete the first-ever Penn-Princeton road sweep, and the Tigers rebounding with a 52-54 win in Cambridge the following month.
And for those fans who have chosen a weekend in Widener over a road trip with the cagers, WHRB (95.3 FM) will be carrying both games. A taped broadcast of the Penn contest will air at approximately 9:30 p.m. Friday, following the hockey game against Clarkson; the Princeton matchup will be broadcast live Saturday starting at 7 p.m.
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Harvard Coach Pete Roby picked up his first technical foul of the season last week in the first half of the Lafayette game (which the Crimson ultimately won, 68-58).
Roby, who had been very vocal in his displeasure with a number of calls on the night, was finally hit with a "T" after arguing a foul call on Harvard center Bill Mohler.
But although the first-year coach has dished out far more than one technical's worth of abuse to officials over the course of the season, Roby consistently refuses to cite poor officiating as a cause of the Crimson's losing record.
Incidentally, both coaches rode the refs so hard during the first half of the Lafayette contest that official Fran Foley was heard to wonder at halftime, "Are we really as bad as the benches seem to think?"
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This Week's Impossible To Get Trivia Question: Which current cager is the nephew of reggae star Dennis Brown? Answer below.
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The Lafayette game contained another season-first: junior guard Keith Webster played in every minute of the contest.
