Nine more days.
With Penn's season opener against Drexel less than a week and a half away, the Quakers took to the floor last night before a sparse crowd.
Faced with the first real rebuilding effort at Penn in the past several years, Miller said after the annual Red and Blue scrimmage that getting under the lights, as it did over the weekend in a scrimmage at Colgate, could do his young team good.
"It was really good to get a chance to play in front of the crowd," Miller said. "For our young guys, they haven't played here before and they're very inexperienced. Our whole team is inexperienced. So any time you can get out and play organized in front of a crowd it should help."
A more immediate concern is injuries, but the Quakers seem to be faring well - at this point last year, surgery had already seriously delayed then-junior guard Mike Kach's return to the floor.
This year, Miller said that the nagging injuries that befell sophomore guard Darren Smith (shoulder) and senior Kach (foot) have subsided.
"Both those guys have not missed a practice and they have been healthy, so knock on wood, [they're fine]" Miller said.
Freshman point guard Harrison Gaines has a sprained ankle and did not participate in yesterday's scrimmage. The team has the day off today, and Gaines is expected back at practice tomorrow. Miller said he has shown promise running the point in practice.
Also, freshman forward Danny Monckton has a virus, Miller said. He has been briefly hospitalized but could return after "a short period of time."
We're No. 1. While Miller gave a cautious speech to the meager crowd last night, women's coach Pat Knapp predictably went the bold route. He said that the goals for Penn this year were to beat Princeton twice and win the Ivy League title. The Tigers swept last year's series, and the Quakers went 7-7 in the Ivy.
Howlett on Howlett. Reached by telephone last night, incoming freshman forward Mike Howlett, who committed to Penn on Sunday, said that his decision was largely a result of his confidence in the coaching staff.
He said his priorities shifted after he withdrew from Lehigh's program in 2006 after its coach departed.
"After last year what happened with me, I wanted to go somewhere I knew that there were going to be good people, people who I could trust and who I could have a good relationship with for four years, and after talking with coach Miller . I got a real good feeling from them. I felt they were real genuine," he said.
"Coach [Mike] Martin, he came up to my high school probably three or four times on recruiting trips, and then coach [Chris] Sparks and coach Miller also came up."
But he said that his mind was only made up after he spent time with the team.
"After meeting with them, I knew that if I got the scores that I needed to get into Penn I definitely would want to be going there."
