City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2022-23 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 9. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season click here)
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Kayla Padilla knew what she signed up for even before arriving in University City.

The Penn women’s basketball program had been a machine under 13th-year head coach Mike McLaughlin for a half decade plus, churning out 20-plus-win season after 20-plus-win season and continually placing itself among the elites of the Ivy League.

“Coach McLaughlin and the coaching staff during recruiting do a good job of kind of setting the ground rules of what’s expected of new players,” Padilla said. “I don’t think anyone comes in totally blindsided, and I think that’s such a great thing about the program and something that continues to carry on throughout generations of Penn basketball.”

Padilla began her Penn career expecting postseason runs in the Ivy League tournament and hopefully the league titles and NCAA Tournament appearances that come with them. The Quakers had three league crowns and three NCAA appearances (2014, 2016, 2017) in the six seasons before Padilla arrived on campus in 2019.

Entering her fourth year at Penn, Padilla is still waiting for her own postseason experience. 

A first-place regular-season finish in 2019-20 was squandered when the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the Ivy and NCAA postseasons. Then her sophomore season was canceled in its entirety as the Ivy League did not play in 2020-21 due to the lingering pandemic. 

Finally back on the floor last season, Padilla and the Quakers finished fifth in the Ivy, losing out on the fourth and final postseason spot via tiebreaker.

With one more go-around at Penn, the two-time first team Ivy League selection is hoping to return the Quakers to the standard she grew familiar with coming in.

“I think there’s a ton of motivation to finally be in the position we want to be and then obviously kind of hoping that energy and motivation spreads throughout everyone because I think it’s super prevalent with the seniors especially,” Padilla said.

Penn went 12-14 and 7-7 in the Ivy League last season. It was the first time since 2012-13 (18-13, 9-5) the Quakers didn’t win 20-or-more games or finish first or second in the Ivy regular-season standings. The 2021-22 campaign also marked Penn’s first losing season since 2011-12 when the Quakers went 13-15 and finished fifth in the league with a 6-8 record.

The Quakers were picked to finish fifth in the league’s preseason poll behind Princeton, Columbia, Yale and Harvard.

“I think with any experience like that, it’s something you can learn from,” Padilla said. “Obviously, we were a little disappointed with the results last year, not having made the (Ivy League) tournament, but I think that just serves as extra fuel for us to get better and carrying that motivation and kind of passing that on to the younger peeps who are coming in and new to basketball. 

“Kind of showing them the way, but also leaning on past experiences and failures and feeling that to hopefully get some more wins this year.”

Padilla averaged 17.4 ppg, 2.4 apg and 2.1 rpg as a freshman in 2019-20 for a squad that went 20-7 and 10-4 in the Ivy League and was preparing itself for the league postseason tournament before COVID hit.

Along with Padilla, the 2019-20 Ivy League Rookie of the Year and a first team all-conference selection, the Quakers were expected to have most of that core back for a 2020-21 season that never happened.

When Penn finally returned to the floor last season, most of the rest of that core group was gone. Suddenly, Padilla was one of the veterans on the team with just one season of college basketball under her belt.

“With the pandemic it’s been weird because I went from freshman year just taking everything in to suddenly being catapulted into a sort of leadership position,” Padilla said. “But it’s something I’ve taken on as an opportunity rather than something to be fearful of. I take as much pride on the court representing our team as I do off the court as well. It’s important to me to be well-rounded in that regard to obviously be an example for my teammates but also just to represent Penn basketball as well around the school too.”

Padilla’s junior campaign last season was even better than her freshman season individually as she averaged 18.5 ppg, 4.2 apg and 3.1 rpg to earn first team All-Ivy honors for the second team. A Quakers squad without a lot of experience beyond her couldn’t replicate the team success of her debut campaign.

She hopes to raise herself and her squad to another level this season.

“I think every year it’s just improving,” Padilla said. “There’s always something to work on. For me that’s something technical like finding better ways to score and be more efficient. That’s like working on my pull-up. 

“But I think this year the emphasis for me is being a better leader, especially at the point-guard position like that. The focus for me this year is ultimately the team goal, just to get back to the tournament being that we didn’t get there last year. I think working hard toward that, any individual things will come as a result of the process of looking to that instead.”

That improvement will hopefully propel her and some of her senior classmates to their postseason debuts.

“Hopefully this will be my first and last Ivy League tournament,” Padilla said. “There’s a lot riding on this one.”