Todres | Tension rising between Miller and fans

It's that time of the year again. I have the dubious honor of penning my second annual "Penn is rebuilding and will not compete for the league title" column.

And this second rebuilding season has brought with it a unique challenge that needs to be addressed.

At the crux of everything is a disconnect between a coach with a long-term plan to improve, his raw and inexperienced team and a loyal, albeit temporarily shrinking, fan base that is used to being in the running year in and year out.

Neither side is handling the tension too well.

Until Saturday, Penn hadn't been swept in a weekend at the Palestra since March of 1968 - against Columbia and Cornell, no less.

Thirty-eight years later, Glen Miller stepped right in and helped the Quakers three-peat as league champions, with a team dominated by a collection of exceptional seniors.

But then he was left with practically nothing - at no fault of his own - and was forced to initiate a rebuilding process, with which Penn fans are neither familiar nor comfortable.

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Against Cornell, we saw the rebuilding process in action.

After getting outplayed and physically overmatched against Columbia, Miller responded by shaking up the rotation, going with a starting lineup of players that he felt constituted the team's toughest group.

And as crazy as it seemed, it worked. There was the Penn bench, beating up on the starting five of the defending Ivy League champions and current league favorites.

Just as this unlikely unit was beginning to hit full stride, Miller broke it up at the first media time-out.

I'm sure he figured his usual starters could feed off their teammates' energy and build the lead even more - I did not disagree with his decision.

It didn't work out that way though, probably due more to the fact that the talented Big Red team woke up and started to play more like we expected them to all along. And of course, Penn couldn't hit nearly enough of the open looks that Miller's offense was generating.

However, there were some notable inconsistencies throughout the game.

The Quakers started out the game successfully attacking the basket, which they tend to do when they're playing well. As the game wore on, though, they ran their offense around the three-ball, which killed them as it does so often. Penn was an icy 4-for-21 from downtown.

Also, while Tyler Bernardini recorded 20 minutes, despite not starting and foolishly getting into foul trouble, Jack Eggleston played only 13 minutes. Despite his recent offensive struggles, he has been one of the team's toughest players all season. But Miller took him out of the game for good after drawing a charge with over four minutes left and the game still possibly within reach.

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It took a lot of guts for Miller to do what he did. He said that he wanted to reward all of his hard-working players with playing time and let them provide a spark - that it's unfair for them to kill themselves in practice and not get a chance in a game.

In a rebuilding process, where you are trying to improve the team as a whole, that philosophy is fine. Penn is not ready to make a run at a league title yet, so if Miller thinks that doing what he did against Cornell will best position his team in the long run or the short run, so be it.

The league is pretty wide open this season, and fans would have preferred to see Penn remain in realistic contention past the first home weekend. So now they're going to be upset and more impatient, and some of them will continue to heckle Miller and even call for his firing. The tension will continue to grow.

Miller mentioned in the press conference Saturday night that he doesn't care about people being impatient, and he took on a much more upbeat tone about his team than he usually does after tough losses. He is sure of himself and acts as though he doesn't care what the fans or anyone else thinks, even if it really is eating away at him.

In truth, Miller and the fans need to meet each other halfway.

Penn fans do need to show much more patience and respect for what Miller is doing. But Miller understandably won't get that patience and respect if he continues to send mixed messages about his team and be dismissive of people that have supported Penn for years. Both Miller and the fans deserve better.

Andrew Todres is a senior political science and history double-major from New York. His email address is todres@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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