Pat Knapp is sick of watching his women's basketball team play nice.
In a 78-45 loss at Duquesne on Saturday, the Quakers watched the Dukes snatch 22 offensive rebounds and score 21 second-chance points.
"The only thing I'm going to take from [the game] is that we better get physical," Knapp said. "We need to throw the first punch, we need to knock out the first rebounder - we need to get after people and get after the ball."
Rebounding was not the Quakers' only problem on Saturday. Knapp said his team's loss can be attributed to three factors - turnovers, cold shooting and the aforementioned woes on the boards.
"Wrap those all together," he said, "and it's not a good day."
The Dukes (4-0), on the other hand, gave the ball up 12 times, but the Quakers could only capitalize on those mistakes for six points.
"We gave the ball back way too much," Knapp said. "We're not going to survive that."
The Red and Blue completed 30.8 percent of their shots and went 1-for-17 from three-point land, good for an even more abysmal 5.9 percent.
"Our best three-point shooters - Carrie Biemer, Kelly Scott, Sarah Bucar and Julie Becker - on all of their threes, they were wide open," Knapp said. "We need to have [them] nail some of those."
Senior captain Biemer, playing an all-too-familiar role, kept the Quakers in the game while they were still within fighting distance.
Duquesne opened the game on a tear and led 26-10 with a little over four minutes to go in the first half. Penn fought back, and with six points from Biemer and three from senior Scott (the Quakers' lone three-pointer of the day), the score was 26-19 as the teams headed into the locker rooms.
But the second half was a different story.
After back-to-back layups from Biemer and junior guard Caitlin Slover three minutes into the half, Penn was down by a manageable eight points, 34-26.
But then, on came the Dukes. Duquesne went on a 13-0 run to end the game less than halfway through the second half. The Quakers never got within 17 points again.
"We dug ourselves in a hole and made it hard to climb back out of it," Biemer said.
A bright spot on the day for the Red and Blue was freshman forward Tyler Cumbo, who scored nine points in 17 minutes.
Despite her effort, she knows that her team needs more than just a refresher course in boxing out.
"With turnovers and rebounds, it's all about heart," the Upper Marlboro, Md., native said.
"It's going to take some soul searching for us to get some more boards."
