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Penn men's basketball is defeated at Penn State in its season opener. Penn 4 Tyler Bernardini Credit: Katie Rubin

If there’s any rust on the Penn men’s basketball roster, nobody’s admitting it.

With seniors Tyler Bernardini, Andreas Schreiber and Conor Turley all returning from extensive injury breaks last season, just how the three will play — and as a result how improved the Quakers will be this season — remains to be seen.

It’s tough to get back into the swing of things after injury, but according to the rehabbed Quakers, they’re ready to play.

“It takes a little bit of time to get back into it,” said senior captain Conor Turley, who missed the final nine games of the season and four months overall after injuring both hands against Cornell. “But I feel like that phase is completely done with.”

But Turley’s stint on the bench was just the tip of the iceberg in a season that was marked by injury.

Tyler Bernardini, the 2007-08 Ivy League Rookie of the Year, injured his foot in the second game of the season and was out for the remainder. That same night would also be the last for center Andreas Schreiber, who’s missed much of the last two seasons with a shoulder injury.

And though Turley remained in the lineup until February, his on the court wisdom — he is 24 after all — was sorely missed after his season-ender.

“Ideally, it’d be nice to have everyone healthy to be able to help us because everyone on the team has a role to play,” Turley said.

Bernardini, for one, can be a huge scoring boost to this team and take some of that burden off of junior Zack Rosen’s back.

“I’m trying to put in a lot of work to get myself to a point where I feel good and play well and not have the lapses from a year off,” Bernardini said.

But if the returnees aren’t the same, the seniors might be forced to take a backseat to a talented group of freshmen that would benefit from time developing on the court.

“You’re not gonna get it all back in one day. Starting from last spring I was struggling a lot,” Bernardini said. “You understand that it’s a process and embrace that.”

Bernardini aptly compared his personal recovery to that of the program as a whole, which kicks off a season of recovery Saturday against Davidson, after it’s worst-ever 6-22 record last year.

And the two resurgences will be linked this season. Success for the players who missed chunks of last year will translate into success for the downtrodden Quakers.

CALDER SILCOX is a junior science, technology and society major from Washington, D.C., and is Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian. His e-mail address is silcox@theDP.com.

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