Penn hoops feeders in ESPN national rankings

Youth will be key for Penn men's basketball this year. The team has six seniors (including a few super seniors) but no juniors on the underclassmen-heavy roster. We've seen some promise out of the sophomore class, but there are still many unknowns — the entire freshman class being the biggest.

Jack Eggleston wrote earlier this week about the hope inherent in preseason. Well here's another reason to be a little more hopeful: Penn's roster includes players from three of ESPN's top 50 preseason high-school programs.

Henry Brooks: No. 2, Miller Grove (Ga.): The freshmen is definitely high on the unknown list after tearing his ACL last year. But his pedigree is also high, coming out of the second-best ranked high school program in the country. The Wolverines went 31-2 last season and with Brooks' leadership emerged as a "national powerhouse," as ESPN called them.

Miles Cartwright: No. 26, Loyola (Ca.): The guard is not an unknown. After Game 1 last year, Penn fans knew exactly what they were getting — a bonafide star for four years. If that bodes well for the future, so does that fact that his old teammate, Loyola senior Julian Harrell, will join him at Penn next year. The swingman and leader of Loyola's team committed to play for Penn earlier this month. ESPN notes that this is the school's highest preseason ranking since 1989-90.

Greg Louis: No. 49, Dwyer (Fla.): The big man could play big minutes for Penn in a frontcourt that needs as much help as it can get. He comes out of a program that is building some basketball cred in the football-dominated state of Florida. Dwyer won the Florida 5A title last year, when Louis was called the most important player on the team and the "Glue that holds Dwyer together," by a Palm Beach Post beat writer.