City of Basketball Love

Ian Wenik (@run_IMW)
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NEW YORK— Twenty games into the Steve Donahue era at Penn, the record doesn’t look too much different: 8-12, 2-4 in the Ivy League.

But even in Friday’s 63-50 loss to Columbia, the Quakers showed signs of progress — progress that will pay off in the coming years.

Under Donahue, the Quakers still run the same four-out, one-in motion offense that Jerome Allen installed in his tenure. Under Allen, the offense showed flashes at times, but was generally inconsistent, resulting in countless games of 18-plus turnovers. Center Darien Nelson-Henry would struggle to corral even the most basic entry feeds into the post at times.

The Nelson-Henry that showed up in Levien Gym on Friday night looked like a completely different player. Though he struggled to convert decent looks, he passed exceptionally out of the post. Nelson-Henry finished with six assists compared to three turnovers. Three of those assists led directly to Penn three-pointers.

“That tells you how many times we go down to him,” Penn coach Steve Donahue said of Nelson-Henry’s assist number.

After enduring two huge personnel losses this season in the departure of Tony Hicks to Louisville and the academic ineligibility of Antonio Woods, the Quakers are pretty much playing with one arm tied behind their backs. The two guards that Penn will lean on in the future, Jake Silpe and Jackson Donahue, are playing far bigger roles in their freshman year than Donahue could possibly have envisioned. For their part, the freshmen have filled in admirably. Jackson Donahue in particular hit a pair of huge threes from the left wing in the second half, the last of which pulled Penn within one point, 41-40, with 11:30 to go.

But at the same time, freshmen are freshmen, and the trio of Donahue, Silpe and Max Rothschild collectively shot 6-for-19 against the Lions.

The Quakers, as they stand now, have to win games in rock fights. On nights when Nelson-Henry shoots 4-for-12, like Friday, that path becomes significantly tougher to follow.

“That’s how we’ve got to win at this point in our careers, with all these young guys,” Donahue said. “We play through Darien. I thought he did some really good things, but he didn’t have his game that he typically has. For us to win on the road against a team like Columbia, he’s got to play great, and [that] makes the job for our freshmen — young kids — a lot easier.”

It’s a shame that Nelson-Henry will be graduating this year — before Penn fans could have an opportunity to see him operate in Donahue’s offense when it’s operating to its full capabilities.

Some consolation can come in the fact that Matt Howard appears to have made equal amounts of progress under Donahue. On Friday, Howard was able to contribute at both ends of the floor, finishing with three steals and seven defensive rebounds to go along with a team-high 14 points.

As a junior, Howard looks much more comfortable in the offense than he ever did in his

previous two seasons, even though he felt as if Friday’s showing was below expectations.

“I feel like we missed a lot of easy shots —I think I missed all of my threes,” Howard said. “Just wasn’t our night, I guess.”

In the long run, those kinds of nights will belong to Penn.