La Salle to 'explore' the Penn bench

The Penn men's basketball team will try to earn a victory in its last Big 5 bout of the year against La Salle at the Palestra. In the worst injury-plagued season in Fran Dunphy's coaching career at Penn, the Quakers take to the court tonight in their last non-conference game of the season. Penn (11-9) faces off against Big 5 rival La Salle (7-14) at the Palestra at 7:30 this evening with the possibility of having two starters out of the line-up. The latest casualty is junior forward Paul Romanczuk, whose wrist injury was examined yesterday afternoon. Romanczuk appeared to injure his wrist after a fall during the second half of Penn's 71-57 win over Dartmouth Saturday night. Starter Jed Ryan will definitely be on the bench again with a broken pinkie finger on his shooting hand. Ryan will be out one to two more weeks. "Injuries are things that happen over courses of years," Dunphy said. "In my previous eight years we only lost one player to a number of games. Otherwise we have been pretty lucky with the exception of junior Frank Brown last year. It is just one of those things that is catching up with us over the course of this season." A team that started out the season with seven players' 6'6" or taller will possibly only have three of them in uniform tonight. In the beginning of the season, sophomore center Geoff Owens was told for medical reasons to sit out the whole season. Brown has been out since December with pain in his right knee. Sophomore guard Matt Langel joined the group for 10 days with a bruised thigh. The healthy trio of George Mboya, Mike Melcher and Josh Sanger have only averaged a combined 29.1 minutes per game. The three, which have averaged a combined 2.3 points and six rebounds per game, will have to compensate for Romanczuk and Ryan's loss of 23.8 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. The situation does not worry the team. In winning eight out of their last 10, the Quakers have already demonstrated their ability to play well under different circumstances. In defeating Dartmouth, eight out of the nine players in the game reached double digits in minutes played. "It has to be a team effort," Romanczuk said. "Matt went down. Lamar got an opportunity and played well. Now Jed Ryan goes down and that gives other guys opportunities." Although unfortunate for the team, sophomore guard Michael Jordan believes the different players have added another dimension to the Quakers. "I guess it catches teams off guard, because they see new faces," Jordan said. "They haven't had a chance to scout them, because these guys haven't been playing all year. We would love to have those guys back, but I am confident about everybody on our whole team." Where Penn has lost, La Salle has gained. This season, La Salle has benefited at least on offense with the addition of two frontcourt players. K'Zell Wesson, a junior college transfer from the College of Eastern Utah, has averaged 13.3 points and 10.9 rebounds per game, while Victor Thomas, a Philadelphia native, has contributed 11.9 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. The play of Wesson and Thomas has taken some of the pressure off the Atlantic 10's leading scorer, sophomore Donnie Carr. Last season Carr was the sixth leading scorer in Division I, averaging 23.9 points per game while shooting a meager 35 percent from the floor. La Salle coach Speedy Morris was not upset with the high number of shots Carr took last year because the offensive burden had been placed on the shoulders of Carr. "I think I will be guarding Donnie," Jordan said. "It is not about stopping Donnie. You just have to make every shot tough for him." This season Carr is averaging five points less a game, while dishing two and a half assists more per game. With Carr's shooting percentage still at 35 percent, Morris has become more critical of Carr's offensive game. "He has been working at it, but he is still shooting way below 40 percent," Morris said. "That is just not good enough for a player of his caliber. He has to be a lot higher." Along with Carr on the perimeter are senior guards Mike Gizzi and Shawn Smith. The two seniors have averaged 15.7 points, 4.4 rebounds and 8.5 points, 4.3 assists, respectively. While averaging 71.3 points per game as a team, La Salle has also allowed 79.1 points per game. The Explorers are also last in the Atlantic 10 in opponents' field goal percentage at a staggering 48.9 percent. "Offensively, I would give [La Salle] a 'B,' " Morris said. "On the defensive end and defensive intensity, they flunk. The Penn kids really play hard on that end of that floor. Disappointing to say, we don't play as hard." Last season the Quakers defeated La Salle at the CoreStates Spectrum 67-60. This season the game falls right in the middle of the conference season for both teams. Tonight is the final Big 5 (Philadelphia ) match-up for Penn this season.

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