Penn Hoops Opens Ivy Play Saturday Night At Princeton

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The University of Pennsylvania men's basketball team will open Ivy League play on Saturday night when they visit rival Princeton.

The start of league play probably couldn't come at a better time for the 6-5 Quakers who have won three-straight while playing their best basketball of the season. In all three wins, the Quakers took competitive games and closed them out late.

"To see us win and figure out how to execute on offense and defense down the stretch," Penn head coach Steve Donahue tells KYW Newsradio, "I think that's a huge part of what you're going to have to do in the league if you want to win this thing."

Listen to the entire interview with Penn head coach Steve Donahue:

Last time out on December 30th, Penn beat Fairfield at the Palestra, 74-68. In that game, the Quakers got big games from their two leading scorers. Freshman forward AJ Brodeur poured in a career-high 27 points while pulling down 10 rebounds and senior guard Matt Howard had 19 points and nine rebounds.

"They've been pretty consistent the whole season so far," Donahue says. "The important part for us is that teams are going to start trying to take them away and how well can we score outside of those two. Obviously, I think it's important that we move the basketball and shoot the ball well from the perimeter, because I think those two guys in particular do a lot around the rim, attack the rim, (if) our perimeter shooting continues to improve, obviously, I think (it) will make us a better offensive team."

Brodeur is averaging 15.4 points per game and Howard pours in 13.4 points a night.

Penn on Saturday night will visit a Princeton team that is 7-6 and also riding a three-game winning streak. Last season, Princeton won both match-ups between the two teams by a total of three points. Donahue says the Tigers are quite good.

"They've won for the last couple of years," Donahue says. "(Senior forward) Spencer Weisz and (sophomore guard) Devin Cannady and (senior forward) Steven Cook, three really good basketball players that have played a really good schedule. They don't give you anything, they're a really good defensive team, good offensive team, good rebounding team, take care of the ball. So you have to play well in all aspects of the game to beat them."

Cook leads the Tigers in scoring at 15.8 ppg. Cannady checks in at 13.1 ppg with Weisz adding 10.2 points a night.

Saturday night's game will get underway at 7:00pm.