M. Hoops | Low road to Highlanders

When you're in a rut, sloppy seconds may not look so bad - even if they are coming from the likes of Columbia and Yale.

Disheartened by Navy, demoralized by UCF and destroyed by Temple, the Quakers (3-8) are headed to the Garden State tomorrow to take on NJIT, a team emerging from back-to-back thrashings by the Lions and Bulldgos a mere week ago. Both Ivy teams beat the Highlanders by more than 25 points, with the 80-51 loss to Yale coming at home.

If Penn's 0-2 record against city teams has deemed Big 5 play irrelevant, the NJIT matchup will allow Quakers coach Glen Miller to gauge his team against what truly matters - Penn's Ivy League opponents.

"Hopefully we can come out and execute better," he said. "If we do that, we can build some momentum" heading into the Ivy season.

On paper, the much-maligned Highlanders may seem just a little too tempting for a Penn team licking its Owl-inflicted wounds. In just its third year of Division I play, the 6,000-student technology institute is currently in the throes of a 50-game losing streak.

At the same time, Miller, ever the practitioner of coach-speak, said the Quakers aren't overlooking the Highlanders (0-17).

"I'm not going to say they're as good as Temple, because everyone knows they're not," he said. "But they're a team we've got to take seriously."

Few of their contests have been within even a rally's reach, with many of the losses in the deep double-digit range. Some of the numbers even hearken back to the days of middle school scores, such as the 38 points - total - that the Highlanders put up against Lehigh earlier this season.

Ironically, the Red and Blue handed the Highlanders one of those 50 defeats last January, 79-68, at a point in Penn's 2007-08 season that is eerily similar to where the Quakers find themselves now. Just like last month, the Florida sun had provided no answers for Miller's young squad in 2007 as they fell to Florida Gulf Coast and Miami, and the Big 5 had provided comparable pummelling.

Surprisingly, NJIT kept it close for most of the game, but was eventually put away by an outstanding performance from then-junior Cameron Lewis, who had 15 points, nine rebounds and five steals.

Penn will need to pay the most attention to the two bright spots in NJIT's program - Ivy veteran and first-year coach Jim Engles and his new kid on the roster, rookie guard Isaiah Wilkerson.

Engles, who was part of the coaching staff at Columbia for the last five years - including the past two seasons, which both saw the Lions finish fourth with a 7-7 league record - has had a heavy hand in Wilkerson's playing time.

The freshman --- who averages 11.8 points per game - played a crucial role in NJIT's near-comeback against Loyola (Md.) Wednesday with 12 points and six rebounds. His presence is a refreshing new threat on the perimeter, and the "unknown" factor may pester Penn's defense. Senior Jheryl Wilson, who notched 14 against Loyola, will complement him in the backcourt.

If Miller can make clean work of NJIT like Penn's upcoming Ivy foes have, perhaps the Quakers' return to the Palestra will set Penn on a much different path than last year - towards a more confident and dominant presence in its own league.

Then, the leftovers might have come in handy after all.

- Sports Editor-elect Zach Klitzman contributed reporting to this article.

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