Duke-ing it out at home

After suffering two losses in its first two games, the Penn women’s basketball team is looking to avoid a repeat of last year’s five losses to open the season.

The Red and Blue will get their next opportunity to prevent such an inauspicious start tomorrow afternoon when they play their home opener against Duquesne. Penn lost to the Dukes (3-0) 78-45 last season.

The Quakers (0-2) dropped a game to University City rival Drexel last Sunday and racked up their 19th-consecutive Big 5 loss with a 44-28 defeat to Villanova Wednesday night.

The Red and Blue were held to a mere 11 points in the first half against Villanova and will try to revamp their offensive strategy in order to create more scoring opportunities.

“I think we might have to look to run the ball a little bit more and try to get some easier passing lanes,” coach Mike McLaughlin said.

Junior forward Jerin Smith has already tried putting this plan into action. Against the Wildcats, the Fort Worth, Texas native attempted to draw fouls by running the ball — but to no avail. Smith did not get sent to the line once.

“I was pumping up hard,” she said. “I don’t know if that was very effective.”

Although he sees some room for improvement offensively, McLaughlin is impressed with his squad’s defensive play:

“If we continue playing defense like the way we are now, I think our offense — when it catches up to our defense — will have more success.”

Neither Penn’s offense nor defense will have an easy time dealing with Duquesne’s Alex Gensler.

Not only does the sophomore average a team-high 18.7 points per game, but Gensler also leads the team in blocked shots so far this season (six) and is tied for third with five steals. She is also Dusquene’s leading scorer from downtown, as she averages a team-best 3.3 three-pointers per game.

“We just have to play defense like we know how to play defense,” Smith said of dealing with Gensler. “We can’t let any one or two players affect our game.”

If need be, McLaughlin is prepared to adjust his defensive strategy.

“We’ve done a pretty good job of changing our defense and stuff quite a few times,” he said, “so we’ll probably do some of that stuff as well.”

The Dukes dominated the Quakers in the second half of the 2008-09 matchup, as they netted an astounding 52 points in the second frame (Penn only managed half that, scoring 26).

While its defense will certainly be tested, Penn will have little success unless it can find a way to score.

“We just have to get the will and the fight to come out strong in the second half,” Smith said. “As long as we keep the pressure on in the second half, we should be fine.”

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