If all goes as expected for the Penn basketball team, its roster will swell to 17 or 18 players next year.
Currently a 15-man squad, the Quakers will lose four seniors, but bring in six freshmen - and the possibility of a David Whitehurst return has not been completely ruled out by head coach Glen Miller.
But even though Miller is adamant in his desire to play nine or 10 players per game, he says he doesn't expect anyone to be cut.
"I don't see why there will be" cuts, Miller said. "This team has had that many guys on the team in previous years, under [former coach Fran] Dunphy."
Dunphy did tend to use a smaller rotation with his teams, so in theory, Miller should be better able to accommodate larger squads than his predecessor.
In the last 10 years, though, the largest Penn rosters have included no more than 16 players, and turnover on Ivy League teams tends to be very high. It shouldn't come as a surprise if the players who make it on next year's opening roster aren't there come March.
Follow the leader. After committing to play basketball for Miller at Brown two years ago, Conor Turley, a 6-foot-7 wing out of La Canada, Calif., withdrew his matriculation from the school in September and was accepted early decision to Penn in mid-December.
Turley made his commitment to join the Class of 2011 when Miller was still the head coach at Brown. But after his senior year of high school, Turley went on a two-year mission for the Mormon Church in southern Chicago. In that time, Miller left Brown to lead the Quakers, eventually prompting Turley to switch allegiances as well.
According to his father, Douglas, Penn had been the No. 1 choice for Turley all along. But, he said, then-Penn coach Fran Dunphy "didn't recruit him as consistently as coach Miller did," so he signed with the Bears.
After the 220-pounder's withdrawal from Brown, Miller and assistant Chris Sparks recruited Turley again, this time to join the Quakers. According to the player's father, Turley was able to correspond with the two only via e-mail, and only once a week, due to his mission work.
Turley is the second Brown commit to try to join the Quakers. Over the summer, junior Keenan Jeppesen attempted to transfer from Brown and play for Miller, but the Penn Admissions Office declined to consider his application.
But Turley was not already enrolled at Brown when he tried to transfer, and his was successful.
Bay State baller. None of Miller's first five recruits came from the Northeast, but the coach tapped into his New England recruiting network for number six.
The coach rounded out his recruiting class in December - "I think we're done," he remarked at practice yesterday - by locking up 6-5 swingman Remy Cofield.
Cofield, a native of West Roxbury, MA, plays for Roxbury Latin High School in Metro Boston's Independent School League. The ISL, which also produced Columbia recruit Asenso Ampim, is a group of New England prep schools that aren't particularly known for their basketball.
Cofield will have plenty of competition at his position, with classmates Dan Monckton and Tyler Bernardini also joining the team next fall.
But the athletic recruit can take the ball to the rim, and he may help provide the perimeter shooting that next year's squad will be needing in the absence of Ibrahim Jaaber and Mark Zoller.
