City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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When Penn’s women were at or near the top of the Ivy League for most of the 2010s, it was thanks in large part to some impressive post play. 

Whether it was Sydney Stipanovich (2013-17), Michelle Nwokedi (2014-18) or Eleah Parker (2017-20), Mike McLaughlin constructed his Quakers around an imposing frontcourt force, to good results. 

As the Penn women try to battle their way back up the Ivy standings after a few years of mediocrity, McLaughlin is hoping once again to build around a talented young post: Manasquan (N.J.) grad Katie Collins. A 6-foot-1 forward, Collins is one of six freshmen on the roster, but it’s become clear she’s a step or two ahead of the rest.

“She’s got a high basketball IQ, she’s been well-coached at Manasquan, she’s played good competition, she can fit into whatever we were going to run,” McLaughlin said. “It was a need for us, and she’s ready.”

Collins got her college career going on the right foot on Friday as Penn opened its season against Merrimack, earning the start and playing just about every minute in the Quakers’ 64-52 win over the Warriors. 

With the Quakers in need of a starting ‘5,’ Collins started all three games during the team’s Europe trip in the fall, and never gave McLaughlin a reason to change that lineup during the remainder of the preseason, so there she was jumping center against Merrimack on Friday afternoon.

The two-time New Jersey Group 2 state champion finished with nine points, 10 rebounds and six blocks in 38 minutes of time. Her six blocks marked only the 19th time in Quaker program history that someone had that many or more, Stpianovich’s nine against Harvard on Feb. 1, 2014 leading the way. 

It was quite the debut for a young woman who didn’t even start her first game of her high school career until her junior year at Manasquan, one of the powerhouse public school programs in the Garden State. 

“I was definitely really excited,” Collins said afterwards. “I had some nerves before the game, but I feel like my teammates really helped calm me down and everyone just came together and it was really exciting and we’re just ready to go from the start.”

Collins also flashed her offensive versatility, stepping out beyond the 3-point arc in the first half and knocking down a smooth catch-and-shoot triple. 

“It felt good, I felt like it was a big point in the game, because we were going back and forth, and that gave us a little bit more of a lead,” she said, “so I felt good shooting it, I’m glad it went in.” 

(“You’ll see more of that from her,” sophomore guard Mataya Gayle quipped in the background.)

The last Penn freshman to start the season at the ‘5’ was Parker, who started all 31 games as a freshman in 2017-18, averaging 11.5 ppg and 7.9 rpg in the first of three terrific seasons as a Quaker before transferring to Virginia. 

But Parker, whose 233 career blocks in a Penn uniform, didn’t have any rejections in her first game, a six-point, five-rebound outing against Binghamton; Stipanovich, the program’s leader with 317 career blocks, came off the bench for her first 13 career games, scoring 12 points with four rebounds in her collegiate debut against St. Francis (N.Y.). 

There’s certainly a long way to go if Collins is going to come anywhere close to the same stratosphere as Stipanovich, Nwokedi and Parker. Stipanovich, a St. Louis native, marked herself as one of the best players in program history, sitting sixth in program history in points (1,386) and third in rebounds (999). Nwokedi topped her in both, currently fifth in scoring (1,517) and second in rebounding (1,048), Big 5 legend Diana Caramanico (1997-01) leading the program in both categories. 

“I think there’s similarities in terms of maturity,” McLaughlin said, comparing Collins and Stipanovich. “They’re both very mature kids, they’re both very selfless kids. They both have a work ethic — Sydney, being one of the better kids ever to play here, was the first kid on the floor every day, there’s a lot of that similarity.

“Sydney had two or three inches [on Katie], a different type of player, affects the game differently than Katie is at this point, but there’s the level of maturity, that we can throw anything at her. I think her numbers were pretty good, but there’s a kid I can believe in and trust, because she’s ready.”

Collins wasn’t the only Penn rookie to make a positive impact in her debut. Sarah Miller, a 5-10 guard from Phoenix, played seven minutes, knocking down her only shot, a corner catch-and-shoot triple; fellow rookie Ashna Tambe, a 5-7 point guard from Texas, added two steals in six minutes. Sophomore center Tina Njike, who sat out last year due to injury, played four minutes but didn’t pick up a stat.

That youth and inexperience on the court manifested itself in 18 turnovers against Merrimack, though only five of those came in the second half. McLaughlin also wasn’t thrilled with his team’s shot selection, as the Quakers were 23-of-55 (41.8%) from the floor and 6-of-19 (31.6%) from 3-point range.

“We played two scrimmages and I thought we had better ball flow in both of them,” McLaughlin said. “I just think we’ve got to learn to make another pass; the ball got stuck, we did a lot off the dribble from so far away, we had a couple good shots that we could have made great shots if we made one more pass.”

Senior Stina Almqvist, the Quakers’ leading scorer from a year ago (15.3 ppg), added 15 points on an uncharacteristically inefficient day from the field (5-17 FG). Penn led all but five minutes of the contest, all of which came in the first quarter; it was 12-10 Quakers after one, 27-21 at halftime and 48-40 after three quarters, Penn leading by at least six points the entirety of the fourth. 

Gayle, the 2023-24 Ivy League and Big 5 Rookie of the Year, paced Penn with 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting while grabbing four rebounds and four steals apiece. She also only committed one turnover in 33 minutes. 

Her biggest steal came in crunch time, a straight-up theft that turned into a layup on the other end, re-establishing Penn’s lead at 10 with 2:18 remaining.

“In the offseason, I’ve been trying to work on my defense more, be more active on the ball, and the opportunities were there,” she said of tying her career high in swipes. “We also went over, our last week of practice, being aggressive on the ball, so that was my focus today, and the steals just came with it.”

The Penn women won’t have long to wait to get back on the court. The team will spend Saturday traveling up to Ororo, Maine, to play the University of Maine (1-0) at 11:30 am on Sunday.