Tony | When will the turnovers stop piling up for Penn hoops?

You only need a few quick glances at the Quakers’ statistics to confirm that Penn’s turnover situation is indeed as ugly as it looks.

The Quakers have given up at least 17 turnovers in all but two games this season, not including a 15-turnover performance at Penn State on Saturday. The Red and Blue are averaging 16.9 per game so far, way up from the 12.5 they committed last year.

Youth can’t be an excuse for much longer. The Ivy League is a young conference this year, and Penn currently ranks next-to-last among Ivies in the category, trailing Cornell by just two cough-ups on the season.

Handling the point more this year, Miles Cartwright is averaging almost a full turnover more per game in his junior campaign than a season ago.

And it won’t surprise anyone that the Quakers have gone from a plus-33 assist-to-turnover margin last season to a minus-30 margin in the opening eight games of this year.

But the most upsetting number concerning Penn turnovers is zero. That’s how much progress the Quakers showed in their offensive efficiency at Penn State on Saturday.

The Nittany Lions’ 2-3 zone defense gave Penn fits from start to finish, as their guards easily trapped the Quakers on the wings throughout the game. The Red and Blue didn’t attack the zone consistently enough, instead settling for back-and-forth passes on the perimeter and hesitant play-running when they failed to beat their opponents down the court.

And the Quakers never seemed to adjust offensively, going from shooting 39.1 percent from the field in the first half to just 33.3 percent in the second half. They also settled for 12 three-pointers in the second half after already having struggled from beyond the arc in the first stanza, nailing only two of those 12 trey attempts.

You expect young teams to struggle when presented with a 2-3 zone as well-executed as Penn State’s was. Princeton is a significantly more experienced team than Penn, and yet the Tigers still looked out of sorts going up against Rutgers and Syracuse’s 2-3 zones last month.

But the Quakers weren’t braving Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim’s legendary 2-3 matchup zone. They were characteristically struggling to drive and turning it over against the worst scoring defense in the Big Ten.

After all, it was a steal by Penn State’s Jermaine Marshall that led to the Jamal Lewis ejection, definitively ending any hopes of a Quakers comeback. And it was a fumble by Cartwright late against Drexel that gave the Battle of 33rd Street to the Dragons. Turnovers explain why the Quakers haven’t scored 70 points in a game since the season opener.

And a reduction in turnovers will be the first sign that we can forget about this squad’s youth.

MIKE TONY is a junior English and history major from Uniontown, Pa., and is senior sports editor-elect of The Daily Pennsylvanian. He can be reached at tony@thedp.com.

SEE ALSO

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Penn basketball not intimidated by Penn State

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