The Quakers were reeling from injuries by the time they played their first game this year, and the sprains, tweaks and bruises have not been spread out evenly on the team. The guard corps has been decimated, while coach Pat Knapp estimated that only one of seven post players has missed any time.
That imbalance created a problem: Healthy guards like sophomore Sarah Bucar and junior Anca Popovici found themselves more and more fatigued after practices. Forced to pick up their counterparts' slack, they were taking too many repetitions.
"There were times when we only had three guards," Popovici said. "And the coaches know that they need to rest us a little bit for games. We can't just go pressing for two hours and then expect to be 100 percent."
So Knapp responded by looking beyond his own players. He reached out to the men's junior varsity team, asking them to act as stand-ins during the Quakers' practices. Knapp initially asked for freshmen and bench players, but the sessions proved popular enough that the better junior varsity players took interest as well.
The teams were on the court together before winter break, and a month later the men and women are still practicing together two or more times per week.
"Eventually, it evolved into whoever wanted to go would go," junior varsity captain Mason Poelker said in an e-mail. "Now a lot of our guys go just to have fun."
Poelker said that between three and seven junior varsity players show up each time. Unlike some players on the women's side, they are actually looking for more practice reps. The junior varsity team only has one coach (Perry Bromwell), and he divides his time among the junior varsity, a volunteer job with the varsity and a day job in sales.
"Coach Bromwell is just happy to see the JV practicing in an environment where we can practice our plays against a real team," Poelker said. "We don't have a lot of time to practice on our own, so any organized practice is good for us."
Simply getting them on the court was a more complex process than one might think. A bevy of administrative hurdles had to be cleared for the men to play; among them were questions of insurance liability, medical welfare and academics.
But the women's need was particularly acute. Injuries seemed to follow the Quakers everywhere this season, and new ones have popped up as soon as early-season ones were resolved.
Sought-after freshman Erin Power, slated to return this month, has been forced to scale back her rehab. Junior Kelly Scott recently returned from a months-long hiatus, but captain and starting guard Kim Franklin - the team's lone senior - underwent knee surgery on Thursday and is likely out for the season.
Even Knapp himself caught the bug, missing eight days after hernia surgery.
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The unisex practices produce a unique dynamic. The men dial down their roughness for fear of hurting their opponents; the women, because of their natural disadvantages, go at full tilt.
In practice last week, Poelker got the ball in the paint and found 6-foot-2 junior Maggie Burgess in front of him.
"She went up pretty hard to block my shot," Poelker said. "She ended up just fouling me really hard. I made the basket while she ended up on the floor on her butt, but they are not afraid to go at us."
Occasionally they succeed. Bucar, the team's 5-foot-6 point guard, blocked an opposing shot, and a hard screen sent another junior varsity player to the bench for the rest of a practice. The male half of these plays faced the locker-room consequences.
"It's probably more fun for them because they make fun of each other," Popovici said.
Despite the laughs, Knapp said that the long-term effectiveness of the tactic is difficult to evaluate, especially since he has the more immediate prospect of an 11-game losing streak to worry about.
"It's something that we'll have to see down the road," he said.
Such arrangements are not unheard of in college. Poelker, who has played for Penn for four years, said this was the first time he can remember practicing with the women. But other colleges sometimes use male practice squads for many of the same reasons, and the professional level does, too. Men working in the ticket and promotions offices of the WNBA's Washington Mystics have practiced against the team, for example.
Knapp said the men provide a "level of aggressiveness and athleticism" that is helpful to face in practice, and Popovici said that facing the men forces her to improve her fundamentals. Knapp agreed, but that's not why he resorted to bridging the gender gap.
"It's me trying to save my roster," he said.
And given a choice, he would rather not have to.
