The Quakers lost the bulk of their scoring, rebounding and assists when Ibrahim Jaaber, Mark Zoller and Stephen Danley graduated. But the same cannot be said about the majority of the Ivy League.
"I think there is a lot of parity in the league," Penn coach Glen Miller said. "I think based on retuning players and production last year, the teams with the most, if I'm not mistaken would be Cornell, Yale and Columbia."
In a rebuilding year, Penn will have an uphill climb to see its senior class off with four league championship rings.
Brown is a team that showed flashes of brilliance last year, but still ended up in the bottom half of the Ivy League.
The Bears come into the season having lost only one real contributor. Guard Marcus Becker had 5.7 points per game, but his assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.54 was light years ahead of anyone else on the squad.
They have a few strong guards complemented by a bunch of forwards with modest production last season.
First-team All-Ivy performer Mark McAndrew will look to be the team leader this upcoming season. He hit 72 threes last year (44 percent) good enough for second all-time at Brown. He also nailed 85 percent of his free throws and led the Ivy League in scoring with an average of 18.6 in conference games.
Brown lost six of its first eight Ivy games last year, but finished strong, beating four of its final six and nearly knocking off Penn at the Palestra.
Columbia always seems to have high expectations that never really pan out. This year, the hype might be for real.
Last year's 7-7 Ivy record was a big step up for a program that hasn't seen too much success in the conference.
All five starters - seniors John Baumann, Ben Nwachukwu, Brett Loscalzo, Mack Montgomery and sophomore Niko Scott - are back this season. Last year's sixth- and seventh-men, K.J. Matsui and Patrick Foley, are around too.
Big men Baumann and Nwachukwu did well down low last year, together averaging 22.1 points and 11.7 rebounds while shooting 55 percent from the field. They showed up at home, but the two were non-existent at the Palestra last year, scoring a combined five points.
The Lions like to rotate guys into the game, as 10 players last year averaged double-figure minutes. As a result, Columbia had only one player - Baumann - in double figures in scoring.
The top pick in this year's Ivy League media poll, Cornell is the first team other that Penn or Princeton to claim the top spot in 20 years.
The Big Red are led by essentially three second-year guards - sophomores Ryan Wittman, Louis Dale and junior Adam Gore.
A 12.9 point-per-game performance that included a Cornell-record 83 threes earned Gore Ivy Rookie of the Year honors in 2005-06, but he tore his ACL in the season opener last year. He has had plenty of time to rest his knee and recover, but he'll have to prove he's the same player from two years ago.
Wittman and Dale led the team in scoring with 15.6 and 13.3 points per game, respectively. While the former only averaged 2.8 rebounds per game, he shattered Gore's three record with 93 (43 percent) and missed only seven free throws all season. Dale hit 47 percent both from the floor as well as from three, also adding 3.7 assists per contest.
The Big Red took a major blow when center Andrew Naeve graduated. The big man averaged 7.6 rebounds and 10.5 points last year.
The leader in rebounds other than Naeve? The 5-foot-11 Dale, who averaged 4.3, with Wittman coming in second with 2.8.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Big Green come off of a 4-10 season and have been selected dead last in the preseason poll.
Terry Dunn's squad will miss leading scorer Leon Pattman's 16 points per game, but returns the supporting cast of Alex Barnett, Jonathan Ball and DeVon Mosley.
A tenacious, 6-foot-6 forward, Barnett posted six rebounds and 11.8 points per game last season.
Ball had a nice junior season - only averaging 7.6 points per game, but grabbing 5.6 rebounds and boasting a 1.6 assist-to-turnover ratio. Ball knew his role last year; he shot 57 percent from the field, and yet only attempted one three-pointer (unlike Barnett, who went 12 for 62).
But Dartmouth has a long way to go. Not including Pattman, it shot 26.6 percent from three-point range and the only stat it led its opponents in was blocks.
At 5-9, Harvard didn't make too much noise in the Ivy League, and without leading scorers 7-foot center Brian Cusworth and guard Jim Goffredo that task might be even harder in '07-08.
But the losses aren't as big as they might seem. Cusworth was only eligible for the first 18 games of the season last year, and even though Goffredo put up 15.4 points per game (including 32 against Cornell) he shot 36 percent from the field and committed 64 turnovers compared to 37 assists.
Returning are point guard Drew Housman, guard Andrew Pusar and forwards Evan Harris and Brad Unger. Housman is experienced for a junior, but he's got to show that this year. His 106 turnovers were way too high, though they are bound to go down without Jaaber hawking him twice a year.
Princeton would be best served if it had a short memory. Last season was by far its worst ever, at 2-12 in the Ivy League. The Tigers had no players in double figures, shot only 41 percent from the floor and didn't have any player averaging more than four rebounds per game.
And while they lose leading scorers Kyle Koncz and Luke Owings, the Tigers return much of the rest of their squad from last season.
The main player to watch is point guard and minutes-eater Marcus Schroeder. Now a sophomore, he sat an average of just 1.2 minutes per game last year, on his way posting a 1.61 assist-to-turnover ratio and scoring 6.5 points per contest.
Another squad that was productive last season and retains a good amount of players is Yale. As the only imperfection on Penn's Ivy schedule last year, Yale posted a 10-4 Ivy record.
The team loses athletic swingman Casey Hughes (9.6 ppg, 5.8 rpg), but returns a good portion of its squad, including captain and leading scorer Eric Flato. The senior point guard led Yale in points with 15.3 (5.7 more than the next man), steals (the most by 11) and assists (the leader by 36) last year.
The Holmes twins, Caleb and Nick, return for their senior seasons, as does Matt Kyle and junior Travis Pinick. Caleb Holmes scored 8.7 points per game in a starting role, but his brother off the bench provided the three-point shooting, averaging 5.3 points on 40 percent shooting from long range.
Pinick, a swingman, provided 6.6 points and 3.4 boards off of the bench while hitting 60 percent of his shots inside the arc.
A 6-11 center, Kyle started but played under 19 minutes per game, averaging 3.8 rebounds and 5.9 points.
The Elis will need him to be a force inside if they want to prove the writers, who picked them second in the media poll, correct.
