W. Hoops returns to hardwood

The Penn women's basketball team's 1999-2000 season was the most successful in the history of the program. The Quakers went 18-10 and finished second in the Ivy League with a 9-5 conference record. The Quakers, who have finished fourth, third and second in the Ancient Eight over the past three seasons, kicked off practice two-and-a-half weeks ago. When their season starts on November 18 at St. Joseph's, the Quakers will be looking to a large senior class to take them the next logical step. "The bottom line is we want to win the Ivy League," second-year head coach Kelly Greenberg said. "I'm really, really happy with our senior leadership. They're the personality of this team. They're really who Penn women's basketball is." The five seniors -- forward Diana Caramanico, guards Erin Ladley, Claire Cavanaugh and Liz Alexander and center Jessica Allen -- were part of a 10-person recruiting class when they joined the Quakers in 1997. While the attrition rate may seem high, five seniors makes for the program's largest-ever graduating class. "I think my class in general is pretty special," Caramanico said. "I think our class kind of got the program going in a different direction." Caramanico has had more than just a hand in that turnaround. The two-time Ivy League and Big Five Player of the Year already holds most of the offensive single-season and career records, and she is poised to become the all-time leading scorer in Penn basketball history, male or female. With just 19 points, Caramanico will surpass Ernie Beck's career record of 1,827 points. Last year, the co-captain averaged 24.9 points a game and finished as the nation's second-leading scorer. While the Quakers return the core of their team, they will be missing one ingredient from last year's incarnation. Guard Mandy West was the only member of the Red and Blue to graduate in 2000, but was the team's second-leading scorer and a first team All-Ivy performer. "We will definitely miss her shooting," Greenberg said. "You're not going to find many shooters like that in the country." However, that doesn't mean Greenberg feels her team is worse than last year, far from it. "To be honest, I haven't even thought of Mandy this season, because we're so different as a team now," Greenberg said. One of the areas in which the Quakers hope to be different, much different, is in the second half of the Ivy League season, especially on the road. The Red and Blue sprinted out of the gate in last season's league race, winning their first six Ancient Eight games before faltering by two on the road against eventual champion Dartmouth. After going 6-1 in the first half of the season, the Quakers went 3-4 on the back seven to finish at 9-5. That second-half swoon included a road weekend when the Quakers lost games to Brown and Yale, the first in overtime, the latter by just one point. That lost weekend in New England mathematically eliminated the Red and Blue from Ivy contention. Greenberg says that the experience will only make this year's team stronger. "I think I learned more from that [road trip] than anyone," Greenberg said. "Just because you beat someone at home doesn't mean that it'll be just as easy on the road. It just means that it's probably going to be tougher on the road." But the Ivy League season is far away, and the Quakers have an early season schedule to contend with that contains the likes of St. Joseph's, Northwestern and a tournament including Northeastern and UNLV. The increase in schedule strength is due in large part to Greenberg, who, for the first time, had a say in the scheduling. "I'm really excited that we're going to a Big Ten-type tournament," Greenberg said. "A strong, national-type schedule is only going to help us, like it has for the men's team."

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