Miller 'optimistic' about Danley

LEXINGTON, Ky., March 14 - With Stephen Danley's status for today's game still up in the air, Quakers coach Glen Miller said yesterday he's "optimistic" about the big man's return to the lineup.

Danley sat out the last 38 minutes of Penn's season finale at Princeton with a bad back and missed a good deal of practice leading up to today's NCAA Tournament game.

But Danley, never the most nimble player on the court, looked about as mobile as ever during yesterday's open practice.

"We're just going to take that one day at a time," Danley said. "I'm just kind of leaning on [trainer Phil Samko] to see what happens."

Miller had a positive assessment leading into his team's dual practice sessions today.

"He's feeling pretty good," Miller said. "We're just going to see how he moves."

While Danley is yet to record a field goal in the NCAA Tournament, going zero for seven from the field, he could be a key component on defense against a monstrous Aggies front line. Billy Gillispie's squad stacks its starting lineup with a pair of 6-foot-9, 250-pounders in Joseph Jones and Antanas Kavaliauskas.

If Danley is unable to play this afternoon, there are a number of directions in which the Quakers can go.

The first takes them to Brennan Votel, who really came on at the end of the season, scoring 10 points during Penn's huge first half against Yale in the clincher.

But don't expect Votel to take all of Danley's minutes.

"It'll be a mix of different guys," Miller said. "Justin Reilly's been getting some minutes for us lately. You'll see Cameron [Lewis], you'll see Andreas Schreiber. You could see those guys anyway even if Steve is feeling great."

This will not be a repeat of last year's Penn-Texas tournament game when Fran Dunphy's starters played 39, 37, 36, 33 and 28 minutes.

"If someone can get in the game and give us two solid minutes of defense and rebounding, those two solid minutes go a long way," Miller said. "All hands on board for an NCAA Tournament game. No contribution is insignificant."

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