Penn Women's Hoops Ready For Ivy Visits From Cornell, Columbia
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The University of Pennsylvania women's basketball team will be home this weekend for a pair of Ivy League match-ups at the Palestra.
On Friday night the Quakers host Cornell, and then on Saturday Columbia comes to town.
Penn is 6-5 on the season. Last Saturday, Penn saw a four-game winning streak snapped as they lost their Ivy opener to Princeton at the Palestra, 70-55.
"We played periods of really good basketball," Penn head coach Mike McLaughlin tells KYW Newsradio. "[But] Princeton's a very good basketball team and moments of good basketball play usually doesn't get it done against a quality opponent."
In the loss to Princeton, senior guard Anna Ross had 11 points and seven assists with no turnovers. She now has 402 assists for her career, which is good for fourth in program history and she needs just 27 more dimes to set the Penn record. This season Ross is averaging 7.6 points and 5.6 points per game.
"She is the catalyst to everything we've done so far," McLaughlin says. "We're trying to take a little pressure off her, she's carrying a really big [load] right now. She's been terrific on both ends of the floor. Running the team, defending [the opponent's] best player. A lot of our sets start through her. She has been terrific. There are periods where she just controls the game. She has the ability to score multiple ways. I think she's been terrific. I think she's a top five, six player in our league."
Cornell will bring a 6-7 record into Friday's game. This will be the Ivy league opener for the Big Red.
"They are well-coached," McLaughlin says. "They play within a system. They change up some defense so we'll have to be prepared. They run a very good, methodical, half-court offense. Our hope is that we can get the ball up the floor, transition the ball a little bit, score the ball a little bit easier. But we're going to have our hands full. Every time we play them, it's a grind."
Columbia will visit Princeton Friday before travelling to the Palestra on Saturday. The Lions bring a 6-9 record into the weekend.
Penn and Cornell get underway at 5:30 p.m. on Friday. The game with Columbia starts at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @Mattleonkyw.
