The second-year coach of Lafayette hosts the Quakers - the team he was an assistant coach for two years ago. Fran O'Hanlon is starting over at Lafayette -- again. Last season was O'Hanlon's first as head coach at Lafayette, after six seasons next to Fran Dunphy on the Penn bench. It wasn't the most enjoyable campaign, either. The Leopards won just seven of 27 games a year ago. Things didn't figure to get any easier for O'Hanlon this year. He lost four starters and his sixth man from last year's squad to graduation. "Last year we had a number of seniors," O'Hanlon said. "So this is really my first year. We have all new starters except one." So O'Hanlon is reloading. With youth. Lots of it. If you thought Penn had a young team, take a look at the Lafayette roster. There is but one junior among the 13 players. The rest are freshmen and sophomores. Youth has its advantages, but it can also bring plenty of difficulties. The Leopards' have a 6-12 record heading into tonight's game against the Quakers (6-7) at the Allan P. Kirby Field House in Easton, Pa. Lafayette's record looks promising compared to last year's mark, but it's still on the wrong side of .500. "I'm used to winning," O'Hanlon said. "But it just doesn't take place overnight." The Leopards are making progress. Four of their losses have been by 10 points or fewer. According to O'Hanlon, once his team figures out how to win close games, wins will come more easily. "We have to learn how to win those games," O'Hanlon said. "One or two wins will give us the consistency we need to get." Things may be getting better. Lafayette beat Army, 79-77, on Saturday. The problem is that with just one upperclassman on the team, there's no one on the court to learn from. "We have a lot of new faces here," O'Hanlon said. "They don't have any junior or senior leadership to show them how to do it." Leading the way on offense for the Leopards is 6-foot-11 center Stefan Ciosici, a sophomore from Romania. Ciosici averages 13.6 points and 7.2 rebounds a game, and has two straight double-doubles. Guard Mike Homer chips in 12.6 points per game and is the team's best three-point shooter (36.8 percent). But on the whole, the Lafayette offense is not what you would call explosive, shooting just below 40 percent as a team. "They're very inconsistent," O'Hanlon said of his players. "Last year at this time they were getting ready for high school games in Long Island. Now they're getting ready to play Army or Penn or Tulane. That's a big difference." O'Hanlon is looking forward to tonight's game against the Quakers for a couple of reasons. For one, he thinks his team will be better for it. "One of the things I try to tell my guys is that Penn has a championship attitude," O'Hanlon said. "That's the point we want to get to. When you play a team that's well-coached, you learn from it." O'Hanlon also just likes seeing the Quakers again. He recruited some of them, and he still talks with the coaching staff once or twice a week. "I pull in any other game for them," O'Hanlon said. O'Hanlon thinks Penn has a good shot at the Ivy League title, with more-experienced Princeton as the other favorite. He should know something about the Ancient Eight -- the Quakers will be Lafayette's seventh Ivy opponent this year. "They're inexperienced, but very talented," O'Hanlon said. "That young nucleus of Michael Jordan, Matt Langel and Geoff Owens -- they're going to be terrific in the league. Talent-wise, intensity-wise, Penn's up there with anybody in the league."
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