When he first took the court with his new team, Glen Miller had so many options, he didn't know who to play.
Maybe that explains why he put in several freshmen for significant minutes in Penn's season-opening loss against Texas-El Paso.
In last night's game against Monmouth, Miller got closer to the right track, restricting his liberal bench-playing tendencies.
Miller decided to rely on a rotation heavily dependent on the starting five, a method that was awfully similar to that used by his predecessor, Fran Dunphy.
After perhaps getting a little too enthusiastic about his resources, Miller seems to have taken a cue from Dunphy's playbook - having freshmen watch from the sidelines while starters log close to 40 minutes apiece.
Sophomore Aron Cohen's time on the floor was reduced from 19 minutes in the opener to one last night, while freshmen Justin Reilly and Andreas Schreiber played a combined two minutes.
After the bench's dismal performance of late, nobody should be surprised.
After scoring just two in 44 minutes against UTEP, the Quakers mustered a mere eight points from the pine against the Hawks last night.
This follows an awful showing against Drexel, in which the non-starters accounted for none of Penn's points despite having a combined 28 minutes of playing time.
This time, Miller opted to play it safe in a game where every possession counted, benching most of the freshmen for the final minutes, even with the Quakers up by as many as 14.
"I have a lot of respect for Monmouth, as I do most teams we play," Miller said of his decision to leave in the starters. "We were up double figures, then all of the sudden it's back down to a single-digit lead. When it's a game of runs . you've got to be careful with your substitutions."
Ibrahim Jaaber had just two minutes of rest in the contest, while Zoller logged 34 minutes in an impressive double-double performance.
Danley was limited to 27 due to some foul trouble, giving Brennan Votel 17 minutes on the floor.
Votel has emerged as the sixth man, averaging double-digit minutes per contest.
But if the final minute of last night's game was any indication, Votel shouldn't get too comfortable; Mike Kach had the final say for Penn's offense.
His late put-back accounted for Kach's first points of the season as last night marked his season debut after recovering from a stress fracture in his foot earlier this year.
While the prolific starting rotation and Kach on the road to full recovery is promising for this season, Penn's lack of production from the bench calls into question the Quakers' future.
But even after unsuccessful experimentation with his non-starters earlier in the year, Miller is not dissuaded from going back to it later in the season.
"Their game has to develop; their confidence has to develop; and we would like nothing better than to be able to play nine or 10 guys in a game on a regular basis," Miller said. "I think they'll start getting more in that rotation and help us, especially when we get in to the second half of the year."
Parisa Bastani is a junior Biological Basis of Behavior major from Basking Ridge, N.J. Her
e-mail address is pbastani@sas.upenn.edu.
