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Women's hoops opens Ivy schedule against Quakers

This is the team that knocked Princeton out of sole possession of first place at the end of last season. This is the team with last year's top two Ivy League scorers. This is the team that is favored to win the Ivy League title.

And in women's basketball's game against Penn tomorrow at Jadwin Gym at 2 p.m., this is the team Princeton has to beat to resuscitate an asphyxiated season.

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Right now, just before the start of their Ivy League season, the Tigers stand at 2-11, not the record one would expect for a team that hopes to contend for the Ivy League title.

Whereas Princeton has floundered early, Penn has gotten off to a solid 6-4 start. The Tigers have spent their last week of practices trying to regroup and learn from their early-season difficulties. Princeton is building hope on the fact that both Penn's and its own Ivy records are 0-0.

"We're pretty excited," senior captain Maggie Langlas said. "We're going in 0-0. We could go into the season winless in the preseason and still win Ivies."

I'll be back

When the season started, this game looked like a chance for the Tigers to get revenge. In what could have been the Tigers' last regular season game, the Quakers dropped Princeton, 71-65, March 3 in Jadwin Gym. The loss moved Princeton into a tie for first place with Dartmouth, setting up a loss to the Big Green in the ensuing playoff game.

The start to this season has made Princeton forget about that, however.

"I honestly don't think of it [as revenge]," senior center Brooke Lockwood said. "We always start with Penn and end with Penn. They are always tough games."

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Penn returns four of the five starters from the team that finished third in the Ivy League last year. That strong core made the Ivy coaches choose the Quakers as the preseason No. 1 for the league.

This does not bode well for the Tigers, especially because those returning starters include reigning Ivy Player of the Year forward Diana Caramanico and her sidekick, First-Team All-Ivy guard Mandy West.

Caramanico's stats might be more intimidating than her six-foot, two-inch frame. So far this season, she has averaged 26.1 points per game, first in the nation. Last year, she led the Ivy League with 22.7 ppg and 12.8 rebounds per game. She was selected as a second-team preseason All-American by the U.S. Women's Basketball Association.

Even more impressively, she is currently shooting 61.4 percent from the field. In her last two games, in which she dropped 58 combined points on St. Francis and Bucknell, Caramanico shot 88 percent from the field.

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In light of her field-goal percentage Caramanico is almost exclusively a low-post player. She has taken only nine three-pointers on the year, sinking just two of them. West, a senior, balances Caramanico's game with strong perimeter play. She averages 16.7 ppg, making 23 of 66 threes on the year.

Only hope to contain

"We're not going to shut them down, by any means," Feeley said. "We're just looking to slow them down a bit. It's going to take a total team effort to take care of Caramanico."

Princeton will employ a retooled 3-2 zone defense that will be ready to collapse inward should Caramanico get the ball. Lockwood and sophomore forward Shani Moore will face Caramanico for most of the game. Also look for sophomore forward Lauren Rigney, who usually stays out of the post, to match up occasionally with the Penn forward.

"It's inevitable that she's going to score, but we'll try to keep her under 41 [Caramanico's season high]," Langlas said. "[Winning will take] 40 minutes of defense, we can't give up even two minutes."