Quakers look to rebound after disappointing season

Just call Dan Solomito "The Catalyst."

For more than eight months, the Penn men's basketball team's senior swingman has mulled over the cause of last season's dismal downward spiral that ended with the Quakers losing at Princeton and relinquishing the Ivy League title to the Tigers.

Now, with the 2001-02 squad gearing up for this evening's season opener at Georgia Tech, Solomito thinks he may have discovered the key to bringing the Ancient Eight crown back to the Palestra -- chemistry.

Make his lab coat size extra long and colored red and blue.

"Last year we were unable to bounce back from anything, and I think it had a lot to do with our team's personality and our chemistry," the 6-foot-7 Solomito said before practice last week. "It was a tough situation where [senior center] Geoff Owens was injured and [senior guard] Lamar [Plummer] had come back from being gone for a year, yet they were our two leaders. And chemistry-wise it just never clicked."

Targeting disjointedness as the root of Penn's disappointment, Solomito -- one of only two seniors on this year's team, along with Jon Tross -- made it a point of emphasis in the preseason to bring his teammates together more often.

By increasing their interaction, he hoped to strengthen the Quakers' bond. And Solomito believes the experiment will work.

"I think we have been, as a team, doing a lot of stuff together and really working on the chemistry of our team off the court, which I think will translate to our chemistry on the court," he said.

Yet to be seen, however, is if Penn has the right combination of elements on the floor to make a run at its third championship in four years.

The graduation of Owens -- who not only was Penn's go-to guy in the paint but also its silent leader -- and Plummer -- whose long-range shooting kept the Quakers in many games last year -- took a big chunk out of the Red and Blue's nucleus.

It won't be easy to replace those two key players, and this year's crop of Quakers must fill those holes while simultaneously getting over the emotional hump of last season.

"I think whenever you lose any starter, or anybody who's a main contributor whether it's on or off the court, it makes a big difference," Solomito said. "But I think we have a great core coming back."

Central to that core is junior forward Ugonna Onyekwe -- the one player who may have the highest emotional wall to scale.

The 1999-00 Ivy League Rookie of the Year returned for what seemed to be a breakout sophomore year when he outperformed Seton Hall freshman sensation Eddie Griffin in a close early season loss at the Meadowlands.

It instead turned out to be Onyekwe's last big bang -- he mysteriously faded in Ancient Eight play.

Although he earned second-team All-Ivy honors by tying for seventh in Ivy League scoring, the forward's absence as a consistent contributor was one factor that cost the Quakers the title.

"With Ugonna, he had big shoes to fill," said Solomito, referring to the graduation of Michael Jordan, the 1999-00 Ivy Player of the Year. "You know, he's young -- he hasn't been playing as long as a lot of people.... He's trying to get better every day, and I think he's reached the point where he knows that he's an integral part of this team and more times than not is going to be a go-to guy."

Thirteen-year Penn coach Fran Dunphy is hoping to see Onyekwe harness the intensity he showed against Seton Hall throughout this entire season.

"He has to be the most competitive guy we have in order for him to be successful, and I think that's something that's yet to be proven -- how competitive he is," Dunphy said. "It's on Ugonna. He has to come through and he has to prove to people that he's a very competitive guy."

This task may come a little easier with the group of experienced players surrounding Onyekwe on the floor.

Foremost among them is junior guard Andrew Toole, a 1999 transfer from Elon College who sat on the Penn bench last season in compliance with NCAA rules. Toole averaged 15 points per game in two seasons at Elon, and after a full season of practicing with the Quakers should transition smoothly into Dunphy's offense.

"I think, obviously, Andy Toole's going to step in and kind of take [Plummer's] spot -- he'll be getting that many minutes, too," Dunphy said. "I think he has some real good leadership capabilities. I think he lights a fire under these guys, and I think that's what they need."

Toole will share point guard duties with fellow junior David Klatsky, Penn's returning starter at the position and a skilled passer.

Last year, Klatsky broke the Quakers record for assists in a season (162) and had the Ivies' second-best assists per game average (5.6). He also averaged 7.1 points and 4.1 rebounds.

"He's as good as anybody we have and he may be the best," said Dunphy, who is currently debating whether to start Toole at point guard and bring Klatsky off the bench for a strong one-two punch. "Obviously, David's going to get a lot of minutes played, [and] Andy Toole is going to get a lot of minutes.

"[However,] I think at crunch time I don't want to be on the floor without David."

Three other juniors -- guard Duane King and forwards Koko Archibong and Andrew Coates -- round out the group of experienced third-year players who need to take control on the floor for the Quakers to succeed.

Both King -- who fought injuries most of the year -- and Coates saw limited playing time last season, but Archibong was a solid starter for the Red and Blue who averaged 10 points per game and made some impressive defensive plays on the other end.

"Last year they were still young, they were still feeling their way out and defining their roles as go-to guys as opposed to role players like they were their freshman year," Solomito said of the juniors. "I think this year, those guys finally realize what it's going to take."

Sophomore center Adam Chubb and freshman guard Tim Begley highlight the cast of younger players who will challenge their elders for playing time this season.

Chubb was Dunphy's main choice off the bench last season, playing a good amount of minutes while substituting for the ailing Owens. Once the 6-foot-9 center finishes his recovery from a fractured metatarsal suffered in the preseason, he will certainly be one of the Quakers' top players in the paint.

Dunphy, though, said that the big vacancy left by Owens will be filled "by committee."

"There's going to be a lot of bodies out there," he said, citing Chubb, Coates, 7-foot freshman Conor Tolan and 6-foot-10 freshman Jan Fikiel as definite post players, plus adding in Archibong and Solomito as possibilities to see action down low. "We're going to mix and match a little bit and see what happens."

Begley is "going to play a significant role" at the shooting guard position, according to Dunphy. The heralded recruit averaged 14.2 points while shooting above 50 percent from the field last year as a senior at Christian Brothers Academy in Freehold, N.J. He also averaged 6.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.5 steals per game.

Sophomore guards Charlie Copp and Jeff Schiffner will challenge Begley for time in the backcourt after seeing some key minutes off the bench last year.

Copp started last season strong for the Red and Blue, scoring 11 points against N.C. State in preseason play, but his confidence waned after the then-freshman committed some costly late-game turnovers. If Copp has been able to regain his composure from those experiences, the skilled shooter should prove to be a valuable option in Dunphy's arsenal.

"He wants it badly," Dunphy said. "Sometimes that can be detrimental because you want it so much that you don't have the patience for the pace of the game."

Schiffner's game gained momentum once the Quakers reached the regular season, which included a season-high 15 points against Brown. Like Copp, if Schiffner's maturity level continues to rise then he should become a great asset for Penn's backcourt.

All in all, this year's Penn squad is like a beaker full of randomly poured substances -- nobody knows how it's going to react. However, the one constant in the Red and Blue's grand experiment may make them the most stable group of players in the Ivy League.

Every one of the Quakers' 11 returning players have the memory of last year's catastrophic implosion etched into their minds, and they'll certainly use that as motivation every time they take to the court.

"I think they're ready to go," Dunphy said. "And I think if they're a motivated group and it they are competitive at all, then they're gonna want to go in there and prove that last year was not the real them."

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