The Penn women's basketball team hoped to use last night's game against Drexel as an opportunity to work on its rebounding against a smaller team before facing bigger competition in the Ivy League.
But after a superior Dragons effort on the glass, there is major cause for concern that the Quakers may be overmatched once league play hits full gear in two-and-a-half weeks.
Although Penn was only outrebounded by three, 33-30, Drexel owned the offensive boards, posting a 17-7 advantage. Many of those offensive rebounds came at crucial times and led to second-chance buckets.
"That was the key," Penn coach Kelly Greenberg said, referring to her team's lack of rebounding. "I mean, they had 17 offensive rebounds, and that's gonna lead to 34 points unfortunately. We're not going to beat any team if we give up 17 offensive rebounds."
The Quakers' one inside rebounding presence, 6-foot-3 sophomore center Jennifer Fleischer, had a solid game -- posting 10 points and 11 rebounds, four of which were offensive.
But Fleischer was not able to turn any of those offensive rebounds into points, and was planted on the bench for all but six minutes of the second half. Greenberg was worried after a questionable offensive foul call that Fleischer would get into further foul trouble.
Without her, Penn was a different team on the boards. No other player recorded more than three rebounds on the night, and this problem was exacerbated with Fleischer out of the lineup.
However, it wasn't Drexel's inside players who were hurting the Quakers on the glass; it was its guards, led by junior Catherine Scanlon. Many of Scanlon's 19 points came after her seven offensive rebounds.
"All of these rebounds that we were giving up were really our guards not taking care of business with their player who they were supposed to be boxing out," Greenberg said. "And it was unfortunate because that was the difference in the game."
If the Quakers had this much trouble rebounding against a Drexel team that played only one player taller than six feet, they could have a big problem in Ivy League competition, where they are undersized in comparison to just about every other team.
Many of the league's best players are in the frontcourt, led by 6-foot-2 Harvard senior Hana Peljto, recently named one of the top-five power forwards in women's college basketball by ESPN.com. Peljto was actually outplayed last Saturday night by Dartmouth's 6-3 forward Elise Morrison, who dominated with 32 points and 12 boards in the Big Green's surprising victory.
@:Other teams, such as Brown, are taller than the Quakers at every position, which is not good news for a team that is struggling to get rebounds from its backcourt players.
Harvard's loss to Dartmouth has left the door open for the Quakers to take an early lead in the Ivy League standings. But that won't mean a thing unless they can find someone to help Fleischer on the glass.
Jewel Clark is averaging nearly nine rebounds per game, but she's already the team's unquestioned number one option on offense and she can't do everything. Drexel used a physical style to contain Clark, and she had an off night, for her, grabbing only two boards to go with her 21 points.
Penn needs to recommit itself to rebounding as a team. If not, it could be a long season at the Palestra.
