The women’s basketball team faces the Ivy League’s southern contingent this weekend while it fights to head north in the conference standings.

The University of Pennsylvania (9-9, 3-2 Ivy) visits tonight and Princeton (7-12, 2-3) arrives Saturday night. But unlike Ancient Eight men’s basketball, these institutions are not entrenched at the league’s top.

Although the Bulldogs (4-15, 1-5) have yet to reach their potential, most team members fault internal struggles, including injury.

“A lot of the problems we’ve been facing are team consistency,” Lindsay Page ’05 said. “In a lot of instances, it’s felt like we’ve been beating ourselves, teams aren’t beating us.”

The Elis must shadow Quaker junior Jewel Clark, who is second in the Ivy League with 19.9 points per game. Another Penn weapon is sophomore Katie Kilker, eighth in the conference with 13.2 points per game and a .554 shooting percentage.

On the Princeton side, the Elis must handle a dangerous inside-outside combination. Freshman post threat Rebecca Brown leads the Ivy League with an outstanding .592 shooting percentage from the floor and is the league’s leading rookie scorer with 13.1 points per game. From the perimeter, Karen Bolster, although only averaging 7.7 points, leads the league with a .417 percentage from behind the arc.

The Elis hope to emerge from their slump, and they are looking to build off the energy they displayed in Saturday’s loss at Harvard: a hard-fought game despite the final 25-point bulge in the Crimson’s favor.

“Harvard was encouraging, because we know we can come out with energy and play well, and if we do that with Penn and Princeton, we can come away with two wins and get back on track,” Christina Phillips ’04 said.