There's no place to go but up.
After an embarrassing 66-26 loss to Villanova on Saturday, the women's basketball team is looking to rebound when it hosts the Lafayette Leopards (5-3) at the Palestra tonight.
"We're anxious to show that we're not the team that we were against Villanova," junior Anca Popovici said.
Penn (3-4) will also be looking for bragging rights over its intrastate rivals. The teams' records are dead even in their 16 meetings in Philadelphia and in their 32 contests overall.
Last year, the Quakers rode then-senior Monica Naltner's 37 points to a 78-74 victory in Easton.
This season, though, they will be facing a surging Leopards squad that has won four in a row heading into its contest with Penn. Lafayette is searching for its first five-game winning streak in the last 15 years.
"They do run nice patterns," coach Pat Knapp said. "We have to get out on their shooters."
The Quakers will also have to contain Lafayette senior forward Vanessa Van De Venter, last week's Patriot League Player of the Week and the team leader with 19.3 points per game.
Yet junior Carrie Biemer stressed that "we need to concentrate more on ourselves right now" than on Lafayette. The Quakers did not even begin examining the scouting report until yesterday.
"We're working on our offensive execution . [and doing] some extra shooting," Knapp said.
The Quakers spent the lion's share of practice time this week ironing out some of the kinks in their offense, "the main source" of the their problems against Villanova, according to Biemer.
Penn shot a dreadful 23.9 percent against the Wildcats. That will not get it done against Lafayette, which averages 62.4 points per game.
Knapp, however, stressed the positives of his team going into this game.
"We're three and four. We're not zero and seven," he said. "We're executing, getting good spacing. We're getting inside, shooting, playing hard, and we'll get our share of victories."
Knapp also maintained that playing "with a lot of fire in our belly" would be by far the most important factor in the game against the Leopards.
"In the end, all this is effort and spirit, and we'll bring that to the table," Knapp said.
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