DURHAM, N.C. — Throwing them right into the fire. It’s an interesting strategy. It’s also been a hallmark of Penn women’s basketball coach Mike McLaughlin’s tenure.

Penn women’s basketball opened up the season at Cameron Indoor Stadium on Sunday afternoon, taking on Duke to kick things off.

A man listed at 6-foot-11 and 265 pounds is inevitably going to leave some big shoes to fill. While the sample size is small with only the first game of the post-DNH era underway, it’s fair to say the Red and Blue have found their post presence of the future.

Campaign season is just wrapped up, but another season is just getting started. Penn men’s basketball will travel to Robert Morris this Friday to kick off its 2016-17 campaign.

A lot of times it is best to start off new experiences by easing yourself into them. But Penn women's basketball disagrees. The Quakers start off their season this weekend with a bang, as they travel down to Durham, N.C.

The winter sports season is right around the corner. In anticipation, our editors debated: Which team are you most excited to see play? Sports Editor Tom Nowlan: For me, the answer has got to be men’s hoops. A year ago, Steve Donahue’s first season as coach saw the Red and Blue overcome the loss of two star players: Tony Hicks sat out his final season of eligibility in order to use it at Louisville while Antonio Woods was ruled academically ineligible in January.

On the heels of the Quakers' 2015-16 Ivy title, media voters unanimously predicted Penn would win the Ivy title for a third time in four years in the preseason media poll, which was released Tuesday.

On Saturday, both Penn basketball programs offered a glimpse into their state of affairs with the annual Red and Blue Scrimmages at the Palestra.

A year removed from a fifth-place, 5-9 conference finish, Penn basketball has been tapped to finish fourth in the 2016-17 preseason Ivy League media poll.

Last week, the Central Athletic Collegiate Conference announced that Penn women’s basketball coach Mike McLaughlin will be inducted into the conference hall of fame.

Tommy Rothman, Sports Editor, Daily Pennsylvanian: You recently committed to Penn.

Penn men’s basketball unveiled their 2016-17 schedule Monday, and, much like the team, it will look quite a bit different than in past years. The 27-game schedule features 13 games at the Palestra, including the standard seven versus Ivy opponents.

Men's basketball head coach Steve Donahue officially announced his six Class of 2020 recruits to the team recently to complete the roster for the 2016-17 season. Or so we thought. Donahue announced last week via a press release through Penn Athletics that one more addition has been made to the squad, in the form of a transfer student from Lassen Community College in northern California. 

Penn basketball hasn’t sent a player to the NBA since 2000. That player was none other than Ira Bowman, who still frequents the Palestra as assistant coach to the Quakers.

Though the Penn men’s basketball Class of 2020 has been more or less set for a while now, head coach Steve Donahue made things official when he unveiled the newest Quakers last week. “These young men possess the type of talent and character that good programs are built upon,” the second-year coach said in a statement.

Dan Leibovitz, a member of Penn’s class of 1996 and assistant coach for the men’s basketball team from 2010-2012, has just been named the Southeastern Conference’s Associate Commissioner for Basketball.

When Penn women's basketball coach Mike McLaughlin had to hire a new assistant coach, he didn't have to look far.