City of Basketball Love

Ty Daubert (@TyDaubert)
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As the Penn women’s basketball team traveled back to Philadelphia from Los Angeles following a loss to USC on Nov. 23, coach Mike McLaughlin emphasized the importance of returning home to his players. 

The road was tough on the Quakers, who played as the visitors in five of their first six games as they started the season 1-5. They traveled to California and played San Francisco and USC close in the last two of those, but ultimately fell short in both. A trip back to Philly was certainly welcome, with the hopes of getting things back on track at home.

“I think what you do,” McLaughlin said, “as a coach, is you set up your team. You talk to them about the advantage before you even play the games. You need to have a home-court advantage. This is where you play every day. You walk in, your locker room’s here. … It makes their lives a little bit easier.”

Following the West Coast trip, Penn was set to have 11 straight games in Philly: one at La Salle followed by 10 on its home court at the Palestra. Back in familiar territory, the Quakers have responded well to start that stretch, ripping off four straight wins to climb back to .500, the most recent being a 78-44 rout of St. Francis-Brooklyn on Thursday night.

Penn (5-5) battled in the early part of its schedule against quality opponents. Now, the team is starting to see the challenges they faced pay off in their favor. 

“We’re grateful to have taken those trips,” senior point guard Kayla Padilla said. “We got such good experiences playing against really good teams. But they’re not going to count for anything if we don’t translate what we’ve learned from those losses to our next games, and I think we really took that to heart coming back home.”

Penn looked smooth in their first three games after the road trip, moving the ball efficiently and finding open looks in wins over La Salle, Stony Brook and Bucknell. That quickly carried over as the team hosted the scuffling St. Francis. 

The Quakers exploded for a 33-point first quarter, lighting up the Terriers (1-9) for eight 3-pointers in the period to all but run away with the game from the tip. Padilla buried three 3s in the first, then continued her red-hot shooting performance throughout the first half in a 20-point showing. Jordan Obi scored 13 of her 20 points in the opening quarter. 

“We came out of the gate,” McLaughlin said, “and just shared the ball, made 3s. I don’t know the last time we got 33 in a quarter, but that’s a really impressive start to the game. It kind of set the tone for the rest of the game.”

Penn shot 8-of-13 from beyond the arc in the first 10 minutes of the game, the last miss coming as a desperation attempt by Padilla at the horn. The senior went 3-of-5 from deep and scored 11 points in the first, while Obi made 2-of-4 3-pointers in the quarter.

Obi helped ignite Penn to start the game, scoring four points as the Quakers ran ahead to an immediate 9-0 lead. From there, the team’s offense took off with Penn torching the Terriers from deep.

Padilla and Obi led the way, while Simone Sawyer (2-for-3) and Mandy McGurk (1-for-1) joined in on the 3-point shooting outburst as the Quakers built a 33-9 lead after the first.

While Penn’s offense as a whole cooled off in the second, Padilla kept rolling as she knocked down three more 3s to score nine of Penn’s 13 points in the quarter to take a 46-17 advantage into halftime. 

“I haven’t been shooting the ball very well,” Padilla said, “so I think it’s kind of a confidence booster for me. But I think it’s just a testament to how much of a balanced offense we have this year with so many threats to score. … It’s a good balance of both.”

The Quakers stayed in control in the third before emptying the bench for most of the fourth as Penn completed the win to keep the strong start to the homestand going. 

Following Thursday night's victory, Padilla is now averaging 14.4 points per game, 5.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists. Obi is averaging 11.8 points and 5.8 rebounds. Sawyer, a freshman who's taken a big step up in recent weeks, is scoring 9.3 points per game and shooting 39.6% from 3, while junior big Floor Toonders is averaging 6.9 points and 8.6 rebounds.

“I think this group is really starting to get better,” McLaughlin said. “We’re definitely a better team than we were a week ago, two weeks ago, three and four weeks ago, which is a good sign.”

Of course, Penn has had a number of favorable matchups of late, as La Salle (7-4) is the only team the Quakers have faced in their last four games with a winning record at this point in the season. With Ivy League play looming at the start of the new year, Penn will have to use this run to keep improving if it wants to keep finding positive results against better competition and compete in the conference.

Penn has a test coming on Sunday, as a Temple team that’s won two in a row will come to the Palestra at 12 p.m. The Quakers will see if their recent momentum can carry over in a Big 5 contest as they look to get above .500 for the first time this season.

“The energy will be there, no doubt,” McLaughlin said. “The opponent might create a little bit of a challenge, but I think this group will be prepared, confident and ready to play.”