OPENING TIP
* Lafayette hosts Penn on Tuesday night as the second of a three-game homestand at Kirby. The Leopards fell to unbeaten Delaware on Saturday evening and welcome Fairleigh Dickinson on Sunday for a 1 p.m. tip with the Knights.
* Junior E.J. Stephens has clearly taken a step from his sophomore to junior campaigns, sitting second on the team in scoring at 13.5 points per game this season. Stephens has come within a bucket of his career-high in two of the last three games with 19 points against St. Francis Brooklyn and 18 against Delaware.
* Junior Justin Jaworski has gone 52 straight games with a three-pointer dating back to his freshman season, tied for the longest active streak in the nation, and leads the Leopards in scoring at 17.3 points per outing. 

LAST TIME OUT
Delaware is unbeaten for a reason, but Lafayette didn't go down without a hard-fought effort on Saturday evening at Kirby Sports Center as the Leopards just couldn't get over the hump in the second half in an 81-73 defeat.

The Blue Hens, led by Nate Darling, who averages 25.7 points per night and topped that mark with 27 on Saturday, were efficient on both ends of the floor to move to 5-0 on the season. Lafayette got 21 from Jaworski and 18, two shy of a career-high, from Stephens.

The Leopards, outside of 18 turnovers, were efficient when they were able to get shots up, knocking down 51.8 percent from the field as a unit (29-of-56). However, Delaware was just too tough inside, winning the points in the paint battle by a 58-28 margin and shooting 56.7 percent from the floor (34-of-60) with just eight turnovers.

PHILLY PHILLY
Lafayette head coach Fran O'Hanlon and Penn head coach Steve Donahue are no strangers to sharing the sideline as the two have been friends since their time coaching together in the late '80s. Donahue served as O'Hanlon's assistant at Monsignor Bonner High School for one year, while the two met up again on the Penn sideline as assistant coaches under former Temple head coach Fran Dunphy for five years in the early '90s. O'Hanlon went right to Lafayette from Penn in 1995, while Donahue took over the head job at Cornell in 2000-01.

THE SKINNY ON THE QUAKERS
Penn enters Kirby with a 2-1 record this season, including an impressive win over SEC foe Alabama on the road. The Quakers return three starters from a team that went 19-12 a year ago and 7-7 in Ivy League play, falling in the Ivy Madness semifinals to top-seeded Harvard. Penn is led by head coach Steve Donahue in his fifth season with the Quakers and 19th overall with stops at Boston College and Cornell.

A.J. Brodeur, a unanimous All-Ivy First-Team selection each of the last two seasons, leads a potent Penn offense with four players averaging more than 11 points per outing. Brodeur, finally in his senior campaign, is averaging a double-double with an impressive 10.3 rebounds to couple with his 19.7 points per outing over the first three games. Jordan Dingle, Ryan Betley and Devon Goodman round out the double-figure scorers for the visitors at 16.3, 11.3 and 11.3 points per game, respectively. 

PICKING (ON) THE IVIES
With its wins over Columbia and Princeton this season, Lafayette has knocked off two of the top-six teams in the Ivy League Preseason Poll. Princeton was picked to earn a spot in Ivy Madness at fourth, while Columbia was predicted ahead of Cornell and Dartmouth in the sixth spot. The Leopards take on another Ivy League foe in Penn on Tuesday and travel to Cornell on Dec. 7 for a meeting with the Big Red in Ithaca, N.Y. 

The Maroon and White have not had a winning record against Ivy League opponents since going 2-1 against Penn (W, 83-77), Princeton (W, 83-66) and Yale (L, 82-60) in the 2014-15 campaign. The Columbia win in the 2019-20 season opener was the first victory for the Leopards on the Ivy circuit since a 92-86 win over Penn in 2015. 

LAST MEETING
Lafayette ran into a complete unit at the Palestra on Nov. 13, 2018 as Penn defeated the Leopards by a score of 91-61.

The Leopards hung tough through the opening half, coming back from an early deficit to tie the game at 19 with less than eight minutes to play. However, Penn closed the stanza on a 25-8 run to take a 44-27 lead into the break and never looked back.

Dylan Hastings was a bright spot for the Maroon and White, scoring a career-high 12 points and adding three blocks with four rebounds as one of two double-figure scorers on the night. Kyle Stout was the other, connecting on 3-of-4 from distance on his way to 13 points.