AT COURTSIDE: Ramanczuk has found his role in Penn system

When senior Nat Graham unexpectedly quit the basketball team, freshman Paul Romanczuk was given a golden opportunity. He would not only get a lot more minutes, but Penn coach Fran Dunphy would also tap him as the starting power forward for the Quakers. But even though Romanczuk received the starting spot by chance, his play of late indicates that he may have deserved it all along. Against Hofstra last Wednesday, Romanczuk scored a career-high 18 points, knocking down six of his nine shots. And to prove that the Hofstra performance was no fluke, Romanczuk scored 13 points against Cornell Friday, making all four shots he attempted. He also recorded a team-high nine rebounds. "This whole year I've been trying to seize the opportunities I've gotten," Romanczuk said. "These two guys sitting next to me [Penn seniors Ira Bowman and Tim Krug] have made the job a lot easier. Ira said there's no such thing as a freshman on this team. It's not hard at all with the great group of guys we've got here. It's really a team that's together. I had that my last couple of years in high school, and we were successful as a team." Romanczuk, a West Chester native, was a captain at Archbishop Carroll and was a major reason that his high school team won the Philadelphia Catholic League Championship his senior year with a record of 24-4. He averaged 14 points and eight boards a game and was selected as first-team all-Catholic by the Philadelphia Daily News. Romanczuk also won the Labor Classic Slam Dunk Contest in his pre-Penn days. He showed off his stuff this weekend against Cornell with a slam dunk in the final minutes. "I think that was my second dunk [at Penn]," Romanczuk said. "Tim made a great pass there. I thought we were holding the ball to finish out the game. I was in the right place at the right time." The next day against Columbia, Romanczuk gave another solid effort. He scored seven points, even though he took only three shots, and was second on the team in rebounds with six. Romanczuk scrappy inside play results in numerous trips to the charity stripe. In the last three games, he has attempted 20 free throws. And although he struggled at the beginning of the season from the foul line -- like many of his teammates -- he has improved on that facet of the game. Since January 13, he has shot at a 75-percent clip. Ironically, not much was expected from Romanczuk at the beginning of the season. Among the incoming recruits, Frankie Brown and Jed Ryan received much more hype. Brown was vaunted as one of the top-100 high school recruits by Blue Chip Illustrated, and Ryan was first team all-state in Pennsylvania. But while Brown and Ryan have yet to adjust to the college game, Romanczuk has already found his role on the team. "Paul is a good basketball player," Dunphy said. "He's done good work for us in terms of his work ethic. He's got a live body, and he knows how to play. He's got a good feel for the game. I'm not surprised at all. Hopefully that will remain the same way throughout the rest of the year because we need him. He has stepped up to the challenge."

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