They may still be best friends, but they are no longer teammates.
When Penn women's basketball senior forward Carrie Biemer gets set for tip-off in Friday's season-opener, she will do so without forward Maggie Burgess, who started 20 of the team's 29 games last season.
"I just left the team because it was time to do something else," Burgess said in an e-mail. "It's just not something that I feel is anyone's business but mine and the team's. The people that need to know do."
Burgess, who averaged 4.6 points per game last season and led the team in rebounding, declined to comment further. She is one of three Quakers from last year's roster no longer on the squad, not counting graduated senior Kim Franklin.
Biemer, for her part, insists that her team won't be fazed by the absence.
"Certainly there was a void there, but we've had a lot of time [to adjust]," Biemer said. "We are still best friends with her. She wants to pursue other things, and we're really happy for her."
The team is sticking to Biemer's party line.
"From time to time, at many colleges and universities across the country, student-athletes decide to pursue other interests, and we wish them well," coach Pat Knapp said. "They're fantastic people and we move on, and there's nothing else to it."
Forward Amy Donovan and center Carolyn Miller are the other two former members of the Red and Blue to hang up their shoes before this season.
Donovan started only two games for Penn last season, but played in 28 of the team's 29, averaging 4.5 points per game. Miller saw little to no playing time in her tenure with the squad.
Both Donovan and Miller declined interview requests.
"I think it would be best to leave this matter in the past," Donovan wrote in an e-mail, adding that she wanted "to make sure that I'm not a distraction for the team and my friends."
And that's all the Quakers will say following the personnel changes - there is still a team, and one that wants to perform.
"It's very important to talk about the roster that we have," Knapp said. "That cheats the kids on the team if you don't do that."
