Penn women's basketball head coach Kelly Greenberg caught on to this week's theme of report cards quickly in an interview last night.
Alluding to Fran Dunphy's assessment of the men's team earlier this week, Greenberg said that "she would give my team a 'B' as well" at the moment.
"I just told my team that how we've been playing is fine, but we've got to have our 'A' game if we're going to win this Ivy League," she added.
The solid marks are due, in her opinion, to what has become the team's mantra this season.
"As I say to them before every practice and every game, no team's going to work harder than us competing," she said. "I'm always proud to say that our team works so hard."
Greenberg cited the championship game of the Wonder/Hostess Buckeye Classic when Penn played then- No. 17 Ohio State in Columbus over winter break.
Although the home team won easily, 95-54, Greenberg said that after the game, Buckeyes coach Jim Foster -- a Temple graduate -- said that "we won't be playing a team on our schedule that plays as hard as your team."
"That's become a given every day and every night at practice," Greenberg said. "That has been a great trademark of our team this season."
Despite the focus on collective effort, the team's 7-6 record (1-0 Ivy) has been anchored by strong individual performances from the team's big players. Senior guard Jewel Clark tops the league in shooting percentage, having made 54.8 percent of her shots this season.
Clark is second in the league in points per game with 20.7, trailing only Harvard star Hana Peljto, who has 24.3. Clark is also second in the league in rebounds per game with 9.1, and sophomore center Jennifer Fleischer is close behind in fifth with 8.8.
Clark "wants to be the best player in this league, she wants to lead us to the Ivy League title this year," Greenberg said. "So to be honest, she and I expect that -- she's a great basketball player and she takes good shots that she knows she can make."
Two junior guards, Amanda Kammes and Cat Makarewich, have also played key roles so far this season for the Red and Blue.
Kammes is showing that she has recovered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament last season with an average of 3.23 assists per game, including a season-high 10 assists at Drexel, while Makarewich is second in the Ancient Eight in three-point percentage at 48.9 percent.
But numbers alone do not win championships, and Greenberg is well aware of the challenges posed by two-time defending champions Harvard and a young, surging Dartmouth team which has already defeated the Crimson once this year.
Greenberg called the Big Green, led by freshman sensation Elise Morrison, "as legitimate a team as there is out there."
Morrison has taken the league by storm this year. She leads the league in blocks with 3.14 per game and is second to Clark in shooting percentage at 53.8. She is also third in the league in rebounds with 8.9 per game, and tied for fourth in points per game with 17.3.
"I knew [Morrison] was going to be sensational for Dartmouth," Greenberg said.
The Quakers' trip to Hanover and Boston looms large, only a week-and-a-half away. But there is business to attend to before that, with Yale and Brown visiting the Palestra this weekend. And Greenberg refuses to look too far into the future - especially since Yale won at the Palestra last season.
"It's not tempting" to look ahead, Greenberg said. "There's not a player or coach on this team who forgets that game [against Yale] because they came in and we had the better record and this and that and they took it right to us."
In the end, Greenberg knows that the frenetic pace of Ivy League play, with games every Friday and Saturday night until the first weekend in March, makes every win crucial.
"Who after this weekend is going to be 3-0, and after the following weekend is going to be 5-0?" she said. "We just have to be mentally tough and prepared each weekend."
