Sure the Ivy League champion football season was great. And even if the basketball team is 3-15 at least there's a lot to talk about with the team.

Yet for those of you that know me, the one sport I really get excited for here at Penn is W. Lax. I've covered three runs to the final four, including last year's 13-12 double overtime loss in the national semifinals to archrival Northwestern. I even went to Evanston, Ill., last May for a game in which the Quakers fell 11-9 to the Wildcats. So excuse me if it seems premature to have a post about a team that doesn't start playing for over two and a half weeks.

But as you can see in our special online edition (Snow Day= no paper), the preseason coaches poll was released Tuesday and Penn came in third. But the Quakers will get a chance to prove they're No. 1 when they face No. 2 Maryland and No. 1 Northwestern in back-to-back weeks in early April. Both games will be at Franklin Field, and the two visitors each lost in their last appearance at 33rd and South. In the 2007 NCAA Tournament Penn beat the Terrapins 9-7 to advance to the final four and in 2008 the Wildcats lost 11-7 for the first time in 37 games.

As the article mentions, those aren't the only ranked teams Penn will play. Ivy League rivals Princeton (9), Dartmouth (15) and Cornell (19) were all ranked. And the Quakers will also face No. 4 North Carolina on the road. At the same time, this isn't new. Penn basically plays the same teams every year, though this year Maryland replaces Penn State. So coach Karin Brower Corbett -- she got married in the offseason-- doesn't have an extra hard task compared to past years.

Back in September I predicted the Quakers would win the national championship. I do realize Northwestern's the favorite to six-peat, but they are a young, albeit still very talented, team. (Then again, the last time Northwestern was this young they beat Penn in the NCAA championship game). So just because Penn's third doesn't mean I'll change my prediction. It's been three straight years of Widlcats dispatching Quakers on the final weekend of the season. Is fourth time a charm? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

This year might not have been the best for Penn sports. But that's not to say that it wasn't an exciting year, with plenty of big news stories. So here is my personal top 10 moments ("moments" loosely defined) of the year. And yes, some are positive, while some are negative.  So continue after the jump for the picks.

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1) Despite the recent installation of a carousel at the Dunning Coaches Center, one Penn coach is raking in national honors. Not surprisingly, Karin Brower won her second-straight W. Lax Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year award after Penn went 15-3. It would've been interesting to see if Brower still prevailed had Maryland coach Cathy Reese been in Brower's region. Reese led a very young Terrapins team to an undefeated regular season and Final Four berth, before falling to North Carolina in the semis. (She did win Southern COY honors.)

Northwestern coach Kelly Amonte Hiller won National Coach of the Year, after the Wildcats went undefeated en route to a fifth-straight NCAA championship.

2) In what's got to be considered an upset (or at least proof that there are more University of New Mexico voters than Penn voters), the Palestra almost certainly will lose its matchup against the University of New Mexico's "Pit" on CBS' Arena Wars. And it's not even close, as Penn has 42% of the vote to the Pit's 58%. I guess people believe in separation of church and sports since somehow the Cathedral of College Basketball can't beat a Mountain West gym.

3) Temple has released its men's hoops schedule, and Fran Dunphy's going to be in for a rough year. The Owls host Kansas, which almost certainly will be a top 5 preseason team, as well as Siena who has won NCAA tournament games in each of the last two seasons. In addition, Temple faces five other Power Conference teams, hosting NIT champion Penn State Dec. 5, playing at Georgetown Nov. 17, taking on Virginia Tech and St. Johns at the Palestra Nov. 27 then 28 and of course battling in the annual Big 5 matchup with Villanova at home Jan. 2. (As a side note, the link also confirms Penn's recruits, though Noah already commented on that.)

4) In case you're ever quizzed on terms related to Cornell Athletics, here's your Big Red sports glossary. I guess it's supposed to be funny, though saying that Dartmouth excels in ice sculpture isn't exactly back-breakingly hilarious, especially considering this exists. Penn's entry:

Pennsylvania: Slimy Ivy rival in Philadelphia. It has strong athletic teams and questionable recruiting ethics. Learn to hate them. They’re ruthless, bad sports and play to win at whatever cost — even if it means throwing toast on the football field. And they call themselves Quakers.

So I guess we are Cornell's biggest rivals?

1) It's been a rumor for a while, but the Indiapanolis Star reported that Tommy Eggleston (brother of hoopster Jack) is officially Penn-bound.  Tommy was being recruited in football and basketball, but years of growing up with Jack must have worn off on him, because basketball was his first love. So when his best football offers were to be a recruited walk-on at a D-1 school, he switched his focus to basketball and chose to commit to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Football inevitably complicated the situation, because Tommy applied to Penn after visiting as a football recruit, but was accepted after switching his focus to basketball. Glen Miller and Co. apparently had recruited him a bit early on in the year, although they did not mention him in any recent comments on recruiting. They did not speak to him until he was accepted (one month after he committed to UWM).  The Ivy League education and chance to play with his brother was enough to persuade Tommy to come to Penn.

Tommy is a 6-5 guard who was a safety in football. I don't know too much about him as a player, but he must be a hard-nosed kid that can probably help the Quakers' backcourt off the bench. UWM is a solid program that makes the tournament pretty regularly and made it to the Sweet 16 in 2005.

2) Various Penn recruiting classes were "officially" announced in the last few weeks. Of course, most of these recruits have been on the radar for a long time now, but as the applications were completed the official Athletic Department announcements were made. Here are links to the 2009 classes for defending Ivy League champion M. Soccer, W. Soccer, Volleyball, Wrestling, Softball, M. Tennis, and W. Golf.

3) The NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Committee decided that the 2010 Women's Lacrosse Final Four will once again be held in Towson, Md. It marks the third time in a row that Towson University hosts the event, and the 12th time since 1986 that the championship games take place in Maryland. (1986, 1987, 1993, 1994 – University of Maryland, College Park; 1998 – University of Maryland, Baltimore County; 1999, 2001 - Johns Hopkins University; 2002 – Loyola College (Maryland); 2005 – U.S. Naval Academy).

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1) Tomorrow's big game is approaching as the the W. Lax team heads to Towson, Md., for the Final Four contest against Northwestern (much more on The Buzz tomorrow). Here's the last interview with some Quakers before they left West Philadelphia.

2) Today Penn Athletics formally announced the incoming football freshmen class. Perhaps the highlight of the 34-person class is quarterback Billy Ragone (Chesire, Conn.), who was a 2008 Wendy's Heisman nominee and Connecticut State Player of the Year, as voted by some publications.

3) Here's an interesting look at the commercialization of college sports. It's not specifically relevant to Penn (the Ivy League is the conference the least worried about increasing its profits, in my opinion), but it's a compelling look at the NCAA as a whole. However, you need an account with The Chronicle of Higher Education to read the article, so I'll paste the full text after the jump.

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Sorry we haven't had one of these in a long time.  So without further ado, here you go:

1) Penn's landed its first 2014 men's basketball recruit, as Steve Rennard has given Glen Miller a verbal commitment. The Metuchen, N.J., native plays point guard and has been given an 80 grade on ESPN.com. According to ESPN/Scouts, "He's a floor general that makes everyone around him better" and has the potential to "be a very good Mid-Major lead guard." His other top choices were Iona and Vermont.

2) We've been hearing rumors for a while, but yesterday it was officially announced that Mark Fabish has been hired as Penn's tight ends coach. Fabish is a 1997 College graduate and played wide receiver for two Ivy League championship teams.

"We have actually been targeting Mark for a long time, and we are certainly pleased to have him join the staff," coach Al Bagnoli said in the press release.

The press release was actually better than your average one so I encourage you to read it.

3) Normally we don't talk about Quakers who get all-conference weekly honors since it's normally not that impressive. But Erin Brennan was named national Rookie of the Week by womenslacrosse.com after last Sunday's two-goal, one-assist output against Fairfield in Penn's first round win.

Last night the women's lacrosse team defeated archrival Princeton, 10-5, to clinch at least a share of the Ivy League title as well as the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.  First off, I want to apologize to anyone who was expecting to read live game updates here on The Buzz.  For whatever reason my computer refused to connect to the internet at Franklin Field, so I couldn't post updates.

If you missed the game, you can read my recap and view the box score.

I also wrote a column, but due to time and space considerations I left some things out. So join me after the jump for a little W. Lax debriefing.

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