Louisiana State University's women's basketball team may intimidate some. The team's leading scorer, Seimone Augustus, has averaged 22.8 points per game so far this season. The squad is ranked in the top five teams in the nation.
The Penn women's basketball team is not scared.
Instead, the Red and Blue (2-0) are excited to challenge the highly favored team, an opportunity that may present itself this weekend when Penn will travel to the University of Colorado for the annual Coors Classic Tournament.
"I would love to play LSU," senior co-captain Cat Makarewich said. "I know they are in between number one, number two, number three, and I think it would be great to start off the season playing a top-ranked team."
The tournament will commence this Friday, when Penn will face Colorado (1-1). The two other participants, LSU and Maryland, will also play on that date. The winners of these two matches will meet in a final contest on Saturday, Nov. 27 in the Coors Events Conference Center in Boulder, Colo.
"I just think that there's a lot of opportunity," senior co-captain Katie Kilker said. "People think that we are the underdog coming in, and that's just when the underdog shows their stuff."
The Quakers are well aware of the competition that lies ahead. LSU's rank fluctuates among the top five in the country. Maryland is also seeded in the nation's top 25.
"They are all really good teams," senior co-captain Maria DiDonato said, "and it'll be a good test for us early in the season to see where we are. It'll be a challenge, but it's always exciting to play really good teams."
"We are going to want to go out there and we are going to want to prove ourselves and prove to everyone that we are ready to play," Makarewich said.
The Quakers have certainly proved themselves thus far, at least against Northeastern, who lost to the Red and Blue, 76-48, last Sunday. Even with a blowout win under their belts, the Quakers are looking to use this weekend's competition to improve.
"You only get better by playing the best," Kilker said. "I think that's a good way to do it and a good way to start off ... I'm excited to get to Colorado and I'm ready to get started."
"It is definitely going to be great playing against those teams," Makarewich said. "Playing the harder teams now is only going to make us better and stronger for the regular season schedule."
Though the Coors Events Conference Center seats more than the Palestra, the Quakers are no strangers to big-time play in front of thousands of fans. They look to their experiences last year, when they played at Ohio State during the regular season and then faced Connecticut, the 2004 NCAA champions, for the first round of the national tournament.
"Last year we went to Ohio State and it was awesome to be in an arena like that and to play in that atmosphere," DiDonato said. "It's very different from playing in the Palestra."
"It is definitely a bigger type of play," Makarewich said.
