Return of the bigs

• TWEET
• SHARE
• SHARE

If you can remember all the way back to when Penn played Villanova almost two weeks ago, you'll remember that the Quakers were seriously lacking depth in the paint. Senior Jack Eggleston was his reliable, old self, playing all 40 minutes, but the other post position was split primarily by senior Conor Turley (13 minutes), freshman Fran Dougherty (21 minutes). Even freshman Cam Gunter got in the mix with three minutes.

Missing from the lineup — and the bench — was senior Andreas Schreiber, who was apparently battling illness, so much so that he could not attend the game. Schreiber's absence, compounded by that of Mike Howlett, who has been injured since the beginning of the season, left the Quakers at a loss down low.

According to coach Jerome Allen, at least one of the big men will be back Wednesday against Delaware.

"Andreas never left us. He was feeling ill to the point where it would affect his production on the floor. He’s come back. He’s looking fine and trying to do the right things and we’ll see going forward."

Last week, point guard Zack Rosen seemed to let slip last week that Howlett's return was impending, telling The DP, "the return of Mike Howlett will give us some improved rebounding production right off the bat," in reference to the winter break slate. Howlett has been suffering a shoulder injury, according to Eggleston.

However, the coach seems to think otherwise.

"That’s news to me. I don’t know if they’re pillow talking," Allen said of Rosen's prediction, "or if it’s a conversation between the two of them. Obviously [Howlett] can help us with his experience and his ability to score somewhat and his ability to rebound the ball. But at the end of the day I’m not really sure as to his timetable. I don’t want to make any statements as far as how close we are to getting him to return."

Eggleston echoed that sentiment. "Mike’s a great player and we hope to have him back, it’s tough to tell with those types of injury situations. Just having him in there, another guy who’s going to fight and scrap and get the most out of his abilities and play hard as long as he’s out there is going to be tremendous for us"