Fanaroff | Too soon to judge this team

VILLANOVA, Pa. —

One weekend and two games into the 2009-10 men’s basketball campaign, what have we learned?

Well, we know that No. 5 Villanova is one of the premier teams in the nation — they will likely be tossed around as a potential National Championship team.

We learned that Penn State point guard Talor Battle is extremely talented, and could very well win Big Ten Player of the Year.

But this is, after all, the Penn student newspaper, so if you’re reading this column you don’t much care what we’ve learned about our opponents. So what did we learn about the Quakers?

The short answer is, well, not that much.

The fact is that Penn played two teams this weekend that are quite simply out of its league. The defending NIT champion and one of last year’s Final Four teams aren’t reasonable measuring sticks for this squad.

“I thought Villanova played every bit their national ranking,” Penn coach Glen Miller said. “They have so much speed and athleticism, not just in the backcourt, but at every position. That clearly bothered us; we were a step behind in just about everything tonight.”

Penn really didn’t stand much of a chance going into the game. Even if the Quakers had played their best — which they admittedly did not — and the Wildcats played their worst, Penn still would have needed some good fortune to pull off the upset.

As it stands, Villanova played pretty close to their potential. In fact, coach Jay Wright was so happy with his team’s play that he never had to call a timeout — a milestone he says is a first for him in his 15-year career.

“We just came out and everything was clicking early,” Wright said. “They played hard and they played tough, but after we went on some of those big runs early, there was nothing they could do.”

Even Miller seemed to acknowledge that a perfect storm of circumstances would be necessary to topple either of the team’s first two opponents. Following the loss to the Nittany Lions, Miller acknowledged that the Quakers had to do “all the little things” right to beat a team of that caliber, and failing to do so cost them.

It’s even hard to pinpoint a particular weakness or strength of this squad. After rebounding essentially evenly with Penn State, the Quakers were dominated on the boards by Villanova. And after lamenting their lack of discipline in committing too many fouls against the Nittany Lions, the Quakers committed fewer fouls than their opponents last night.

Shooting has been a problem so far, but that tends to happen when you’re down by a lot early on. There’s no reason to believe that guards Zack Rosen and Darren Smith will continue to put up 1-11 or 2-10 stat lines.

So Penn knows that these first two games did not truly offer the fans a glimpse into how good this team can be. For that, we’ll need to wait at least until Saturday’s matchup with Delaware. Picked to finish fifth in the Colonial Athletic Association, the Blue Hens present a more equal opponent and thus a much better measuring stick of the Quakers’ potential.

“We have 26 more regular season games to play, and we still think we can be good,” Miller said. “There will as usual be some naysayers, but that’s part of sports. We can’t worry about that. Our guys know we’re better than that and I’m sure we’re looking forward to the Delaware game to show that.”

Neil Fanaroff is a senior economics major from Potomac, Md., and is former Design Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. He can be contacted at dpsports@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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