I noticed that a previous Penn opponent, the Citadel, had strikingly similar uniforms to Columbia's.

However, that was the Citadel's old uniform. The Bulldogs' new getups which Penn saw on Jan. 4, were instead just like the uniforms worn by the NBA's Utah Jazz.

And now that Penn swept the opening weekend in Ivy play, the Quakers are 5-3 in the white unis.

Check back tomorrow for a preview of Lafayette's jerseys.

As I was heading out onto the Palestra concourse at halftime of tonight's Penn-Columbia game, I heard public address announcer Rich Kahn announce the participants in the free throw shooting contest. One of them sounded like "Jack Schoo-ar," which caught my attention. I turned around, and there indeed was veteran Associated Press writer Jack Scheuer getting ready to face off against a Penn student whose name I didn't pick up.

Lo and behold, Scheuer won easily. I'm not sure exactly how many free throws he made, but it was definitely a majority of them. His form was pretty good, too, with decent arc and more than enough power. Of course, if anyone would know how to shoot the ball well, it's Scheuer -- he's been covering college basketball in Philadelphia since 1968, and was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame in 2002.

So congratulations, Jack. And if you're reading this, yeah, that was me cheering you on from the corner of the stands. I hope you'll excuse my lack of objectivity on this one.

While Penn still has to take on Columbia tonight and Lafayette on Monday, there is no reason not to look ahead to the following game against La Salle.

This afternoon, I attended my second Explorers game of the year, a 68-52 loss to Temple at Liacouras and found three reasons that the Quakers should be encouraged.

1. The Explorers die by the three. La Salle opened the game shooting 7-for-10 from behind the arc as they built a double-digit lead. Darnell Harris notched five threes in the first seven minutes. But then the Explorers went cold, shooting 2-for-15 the rest of the way.

2. La Salle can't seem to put two good halves of basketball together. Today, the team in blue led 35-30 after 20 minutes, but fell apart on both ends of the floor, dropping the second half 38-17. Just before break against Florida International, La Salle trailed by 16 at the half before their big comeback and overtime win. And even in a 23-point win against Atlantic 10 weakling Duquesne, the Explorers lost the first half by eight.

3. The Explorers don't use their main weapon. Both times I have seen the team play, today and against FIU, NBA-bound Steven Smith has been underused. I'd take Steven Smith against Steve Danley in the post any day, but it's going to take a pretty significant change of gameplan for the Explorers to take advantage of that matchup on the 25th.

Some notes from today's game.

There's nothing stranger than watching a matchup of Big 5 teams at the Liacouras Center. It's too big, can't get loud, and there's something about music over the speakers that just doesn't belong at a college basketball game.

My favorite player in the Big 5 (next to Kyle Lowry) was conspicuously absent today. And by conspicuously absent, I mean that there was nobody taking up two seats on the Temple bench, as 6-foot-10 300-pounder Anthony Ivory is suffering from shin splints and did not even join the team today. The freshman, who is probably closer to 400 pounds than his listed weight, could be in for a short career if he can't get his weight under control.

Well, I just got this interesting press release via e-mail from Sportsbook.com. It has revised odds for winning the NCAA Tournament as of midway through the season. It only ranks what it considers to be the top 65 teams in the country.

And who slides in at number 64? None other than the U of P, currently a 500-1 shot to win a national title.

Other notables include three other Big 5 schools. There's Villanova, who at 10-1 odds, is the fourth most likely winner in the country -- behind Duke (2-1), UConn (9-2) and Memphis (8-1). Temple pays 300-1, while St. Joe's slides in as the 65th best team in the country at 500-1.

No other Penn opponents this season make the list. That, not surprisingly, includes all other Ivy League schools.

So, anyone want to put five bucks down on Penn?

Joe Scott's Tigers snapped their own eight game losing skid by wining their ninth straight over Columbia Friday night. Princeton won 68-64 in overtime thanks to a slew of foul shots in the waning minutes.

The Lions had a golden opportunity with 12 seconds remaining. Down two, Dalen Cuff tried to inbound the ball under his own basket. When he couldn't find an open man, the senior guard called a timeout. One problem, though, Columbia was out of timeouts. Scott Greenman hit both shots of the ensuing technical foul to give Princeton its final margin. Oddly enough, moments later the same thing nearly happened in the Sixers-Celtics game at the Wachovia Center involving who else but Chris Webber.

Columbia held Princeton without a field goal for the final 10 minutes of regulation. The only reason the Tigers were in it was a 26-of-34 performance from the foul line. Princeton hit more foul shots than field goals (17-of-38 from the field including 8-of-23 from three).

The Tigers are now 3-10 on the year, but they are 1-0 in the column that counts. The upside for Penn: Columbia should be awfully tired by the time they hit the Palestra Saturday night.

Best part of the game for me was ESPNU's Hubert Brown saying "This really is the best the Ivy League has to offer -- Columbia and Princeton." He sounded serious, and that's just scary.

Here are a few interesting facts going back to the first season of the Ivy League in 1955.
Friday night's 84-44 win over Cornell was more than just satisfying for Penn fans. It was also historic. The 40-point margin was the largest for Penn ever in an Ivy League opener. And in a league where blowouts are not uncommon, it was the seventh Ivy win for the Quakers by more than 40. Here are the others:
Feb. 10, 1995 -- 101-71 vs. Cornell
March 4, 1977 -- 105-59 vs. Yale
Feb. 6, 1976 -- 94-54 vs. Cornell
Feb. 7, 1975 -- 113-69 vs. Columbia
March 5, 1971 -- 108-64 at Cornell
Jan. 15, 1966 -- 87-43 vs. Dartmouth
- For the record, Penn has never lost an Ivy League game by 40 points.
- This was the first 40-point win for the Quakers since beating Monmouth 98-54 in 2003.
- It was also Penn's biggest point production in an Ivy home opener since downing Harvard 85-68 in 1997.
- The Quakers are now 37-15 in Ivy openers and 39-13 in Ivy openers at the Palestra. Penn's last loss in a home-opener was 42-40 against Princeton in 1992.

All day today, Philadelphia was shrouded in a thick fog that made it impossible to see more than a few feet out the windows in the high rise dorms. But after the sun went down, the Penn men's basketball team played one of its sharpest games of the season, an 84-44 blowout of Cornell.

Ibrahim Jaaber was dominant once again -- 20 points, eight assists and a whopping seven steals before taking a seat for the night with eight minutes remaining. What impressed me the most, though, was the Quakers' passing. Big Red coach Steve Donahue was on the receiving end of a motion offense clinic from his former boss, Fran Dunphy, as Penn worked the ball inside and around the perimeter almost at will. By the end of the game, Tommy McMahon had a dunk to celebrate and Eric Osmundson had a smile on his face the likes of which hasn't been seen for quite a while.

At the other end of the floor, Big Red swingman Lenny Collins looked like a scrub instead of the first-team All-Ivy player he was last year. Collins finished the night with only five points on 2-of-7 shooting, including 1-of-4 from three-point range. He also committed two of Cornell's 25 turnovers.

The stat of the night, though, was Penn's 17-of-21 shooting from the free throw line. That may seem like an odd choice, but it's a vast improvement from recent Quakers performances at the charity stripe.

Overall, I'd rate this game as Penn's most impressive win of the season thus far. Yes, it was in front of a home crowd, unlike the Hawai'i game. But the Quakers were simply dominant tonight, and I have to believe this kind of performance sends a shiver up the spine of the six Ivy League coaches who weren't in attendance.

The only question left is whether Penn will play at the same level against Columbia tomorrow night.

One of the things that makes following college basketball in Philadelphia so much fun is that it's easy to get to games not involving the team you follow the closest. This will be especially true over the next four Saturdays, when there will be a slew of games to check out across the city. So mark these three doubleheaders -- and one tripleheader, if you're up to the challenge -- on your calendars, and get ready for a feast of Big 5 hoops beginning tomorrow.

Jan. 14: La Salle-Temple, Noon, Liacouras Center
Columbia-Penn, 7 p.m., The Palestra

Jan. 21: La Salle-Saint Joseph's, Noon, The Palestra
Syracuse-Villanova, 6 p.m., Wachovia Center

Jan. 28: Maryland-Temple, 2 p.m., Liacouras Center
Hofstra-Drexel, 4 p.m., Daskalakis Athletic Center
Saint Joseph's-Penn, 7 p.m., The Palestra

Feb. 4: Temple-La Salle, 4 p.m., Tom Gola Arena
Yale-Penn, 7 p.m., The Palestra

(Saint Joseph's and Villanova also have home games that day, against Saint Bonaventure and Marquette respectively, both starting at 2 p.m. Tickets are not available to the public for either game, though.)

I know that a couple of us here at The Buzz are going to try to make it to every one of those games. Hopefully you can, too.

When Saint Joseph's lost at Massachussetts on Wednesday night, it signaled a couple of things that Penn fans should pay attention to. First, the Hawks are very inconsistent. They've beaten Temple and Kansas, but lost at home to Xavier and in Amherst, Mass., against a mediocre-at-best bunch of Minutemen.

That inconsistency could become something worse between now and Jan. 28, when St. Joe's faces Penn at the Palestra. The Hawks travel to No. 17 George Washington and Saint Louis, with games at Alumni Memorial Fieldhouse against Charlotte and at the Palestra against La Salle in between. Who knows what kind of shape they'l be in at the end of the month?

It's also a sign that coach Phil Martelli is having to work a lot harder this year than he has in quite a while. That shouldn't be surprising, given the talent he's lost over the last two years, but it's still notable. After the win over Temple this past Sunday, Martelli announced that for the rest of the season he is going to have to "direct every possession" for his team.

"It's draining, but we played a 94-point game at Gonzaga and I called every play," he continued. "It was like a football game -- I called every single play."

Against Xavier, Martelli backed off, asking his players "to kind of work through it. There was a pattern I wanted to run, not a play."

But that didn't work.

So starting with this past Monday's practice, Martelli said he would "dictate every play -- every single offensive play and defensive play."

"It flashes me back to like I'm in Norristown, coaching Bishop Kenrick" High School, which he did for seven years before becoming a Hawks assistant, he said.

If you've followed St. Joe's in recent years -- especially when they came within one missed jumper of the Final Four in 2004 -- you know that this is a pretty dramatic sign that things are different now from those halcyon days. One of the defining characteristics of that team was the chemistry it had while on the floor, especially with superstar guards Jameer Nelson and Delonte West. They were so tight that Martelli was able to let them run the offense and call the plays themselves.

That's why Martelli's change of tactics this week symbolizes so much about his team.

The Quakers are fortunate Monday's Fordham disappointment happened in the Bronx rather than at the Palestra. For at the end of the season, losses at home hurt much more than losses on the road in the RPI (Penn is currently sitting at 94, down from a high of 32 earlier this year) and the eyes of the NCAA selection committee. This, of course, is if Penn can make it that far.

It's also lucky both the RPI and selection committee are blind to how lackadaisical the Quakers played the final 30 minutes Monday night. Bad turnovers, bad shot selection and a whole lot of bad possessions in general led to what looks like an embarrassment compared to the rest of Penn's record so far. It was clear from the start there was a lack of energy.

But don't dismiss this as some side effect of the fact that it was a road game. After watching both of Penn's games in Hawaii over the break, I can say the trip isn't half the problem.

Take for example the Hawaii game. As I noted here, Penn clearly had the upper hand in intensity out of the gate, and that early stretch was what sealed the win in the end. It also didn't hurt that there were about 8,000 screaming fans in the seats.

Contrast that with the effort given two nights later against BYU-Hawaii. Penn struggled against a clearly overmatched opponent and actually fell behind by as much as six in the second half.

The difference? It wasn't a big game. It was a nobody opponent. And most importantly, there was nobody in the seats. In total there were about 150 people at the game, and half were Penn fans. There was no energy in the arena built for 4,500. It was almost as if the team didn't show up, and had they not been that much taller and that much faster they would have lost.

This is not an acute phenomenon. It happens all the time, and it will happen again this year at Dartmouth and at Brown to name a few. I'm not going to speak to the win at the Citadel because I wasn't there, but Penn always plays good teams well (see Duke and Villanova) and bad teams horrendously (see Siena and last year against Rider).

A lot of it has to do with the crowd being into the game, and the players feeding off that energy. Several of them have told me as much after beating Hawaii. How quickly the hangover from flying 5,000 miles disappears when you are in an arena that is as loud as a full Palestra.

But there will be plenty of nights were that energy isn't there, and the coaching staff has to step in. Monday was one of those nights, because for as many Penn fans as were in attendance, even the home crowd was fairly complacent for most of the game. So too, was the team.