Knapp digs deep for first class

In assembling his first recruiting class as head coach of the Penn women's basketball team, Patrick Knapp searched near and far to find potential replacements for the five seniors who graduated this week.

Literally.

The Quakers' Class of 2009?forwards Carrie Biemer, Margaret Burgess and Katarina Lackner, and guards Maureen Mannion and Anca Popovici?will arrive at the Palestra coming from five states. Their commutes will range from a trip across the Delaware River to a cross-country flight out of Alaska. It is quite a contrast with the Class of 2005, of which three came from the Philadelphia area, one from Connecticut, and one from the far suburbs of Chicago.

"I think our staff did a heck of a job in a short period of time," Knapp said. "I didn't have my whole staff until October 15th and I was working by myself for a long time there."

That work was made harder by the fact that Knapp did not have athletic scholarships to work with for the first time, having previously coached at Georgetown and New Mexico State.

Although Knapp said that he is "really not one, to be honest with you that pumps up freshmen," he was happy to put in a few good words about each of his incoming players.

Biemer has the shortest trip to Philadelphia, having only to head over the Ben Franklin Bridge from Haddonfield, N.J.

"Carrie, of all the kids, I think, comes in immediately with scoring potential that we want and need," Knapp said. "She's very strong around the basket, but at 6 foot she'll play a spot that Monica [Naltner] and Ashley [Gray] played at."

Biemer's game has something else in common with Nalther's?three-point shooting range.

"She can shoot the three very well, and we like that," Knapp said.

Burgess has the longest trip, coming from East Anchorage High School in Anchorage, Alaska, but Knapp insisted that his staff did not blow its recruiting budget to scout her.

"I had seen Maggie Burgess in the sumertime play for her AAU team. She played with a broken left hand, and she's tough," Knapp said. Nonetheless, because of the injury, assistant coach Jennifer Wasson traveled to Anchorage in September to see Burgess again.

Lackner, a Pittsburgh native, turned down a scholarship at Pitt and left her hometown to cross the Keystone State. Knapp sees this as a sign of Penn's rising profile in women's basketball, especially measured against perennial Ivy League power Harvard's recruiting ability.

"They boast about the fact that these kids rejected scholarships to come play at Harvard," Knapp said. "I think that's a pretty good barometer if we're doing that."

The already fierce rivalry between the Quakers and Crimson will be further stoked by the fact that Katarina's sister, Christiana, plays for Harvard and will be a junior this fall.

As for the backcourt, Mannion hails from Syracuse, N.Y., and Knapp said that she can play at either the point or shooting guard position.

"She's a lefty, she penetrates very well, and also plays strong defense," Knapp said. "That might compute to more point than 'two'?we're just going to have to wait and see."

Popovici, also a point guard, is a native of Arad, Romania, but went to high school at Mount de Chantal Academy in Wheeling, W. Va.

"They really specialize in bringing in international kids and developing them," Knapp said of Mount de Chantal, adding that Popovici's teammates are going to schools such as Kansas, Virginia Tech and Marshall.

Knapp will add one other player to the team this year, shooting guard Kelly Scott. Scott was recruited by former Quakers coach Kelly Greenberg and was admitted to Penn last year, but deferred the admission and spent one year at Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J. Although Blair is known as a prep school which many high school basketball players attend to raise their grades before heading to college, Scott did not go there for academic reasons.

"She wanted to play more basketball," Knapp said, "and I think the roster size here discouraged her."

The roster this past season was kept at 17 players, a continuation of the roster size under Greenberg. Knapp intends to cut the roster to 15 players this season, and he acknowledged that this will make the competition in practice more fierce.

"It helps us work with these young women a lot more, spend more time with them," he said. Although Knapp added that there is "no time frame" for when the cuts will be made, he said the players have known about the policy since March and that "if we don't get to that point there will be a real good reason for it."

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