Zachary Levine: After A&M; loss, crystal ball gets a bit clearer

The Ivy League title clincher and the first round of the NCAA Tournament aren't supposed to feel like preseason tryouts.

For Brennan Votel and Justin Reilly, they may have been just that.

We sit eight months away from the Penn basketball team's first rebuilding effort in four years. However, after the Yale game and the loss to Texas A&M;, I get the feeling that where we thought there would now be answers, there are still questions. And where we thought the major questions would lie, we may have found some answers.

The answers were provided by Brennan Votel and Justin Reilly, and they were "yes" and "yes."

In a frontcourt that was supposed to be a struggle to fill, Votel and Reilly have taken the first steps toward proving their worth for next year's starting lineup.

In the Yale game, Votel keyed the Quakers' offensive outburst with 10 first-half points as Penn ran away with a third straight title early on. Offensively, he's progressed as far in terms of post moves as Mark Zoller or Stephen Danley did as sophomores.

Reilly, who will be a sophomore next year, played 22 big minutes in the NCAA Tournament and held his own against A&M;'s big men. While he wasn't an offensive force and has been prone to bad misses on outside shots, he provides a presence underneath that Penn may be otherwise lacking.

Neither of these selections is by any means a lock. Votel has to hit the gym and become the strongest rebounder he possibly can to fill the void left by Zoller. And both need to work on their shot selection, although their range may become clear with whatever their new roles may be.

But until Cameron Lewis gets his offensive game to begin to even up with his defensive and rebounding strengths, Votel and Reilly are all you have.

The guard position is not nearly as clear heading into this key offseason.

As Votel and Reilly did their best to play their way into the lineup at the end of the season, none of the guards could say the same.

Darren Smith, who earned a starting spot roughly halfway through the season, didn't cross the finish line strong. The sophomore-to-be wore an 0-for-6 home from Lexington in the Tournament and alternated good games and unspectacular ones down the stretch.

Still, inconsistency is not uncommon to freshmen, and I'd argue that Smith is just as far along as Jaaber was after his freshman season.

So I'm giving him starting spot No. 3.

Assuming Brian Grandieri keeps his, there's one spot left that could really go to anybody.

Glen Miller could go back to Tommy McMahon or Kevin Egee, who both had and lost their starting spots this year. McMahon had a few very strong offensive games as the season wound on, while Egee's minutes were limited. Michael Kach is an option, as are a number of recruits, including true point guard Harrison Gaines.

But nobody took the opportunity to emerge in a backcourt that will likely remain full of questions until opening day.

Luckily for Miller, none of the decisions have to be made right now, but it was very telling to see just what up-and-comers used the final weeks of the 2006-07 season as their personal tryouts.

Zachary Levine is a senior Mathematics major from Delmar, N.Y., and is former Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail

address is zlevine@sas.upenn.edu.

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