Cohen | Miller's time to adjust

During the postgame press conference after a disheartening loss at Navy, Penn basketball coach Glen Miller was the picture of civility.

He answered every question without raising his voice, or, it seemed, his blood pressure.

Miller calmly analyzed the game, pointing to poor shot selection, inadequate free throw shooting and improper use of an inside size advantage as his team’s damning mistakes.

When asked what he could do to combat the Quakers’ lack of momentum, the bespectacled commander had an overly simple answer.

“As hard as it may be,” Miller said, “we have to stay positive.”

But Miller and his players looked anything but positive after the game.

It’s understandable as to why the Penn players and coaches sounded as though someone just shot their dog: they were giving interviews after losing their fifth straight to start the season.

What they can’t be excused for — Miller especially ­­— is making no positive efforts to rectify the problems in their game.

The Quakers’ head man seemed resigned to another disappointing season when he remarked, “I think we’ll start to win.”

Thinking and knowing, as the late John Candy’s character in Cool Runnings explains, are two very different things.

Miller should know, not think, that his squad is going to start winning some games, because he should know what it needs to fix in order to do that.

Instead, he admitted just the opposite, claiming he had no answer for how the Quakers would get past the myriad woes that have been ailing them thus far this season.

Miller seemed at a loss for why the Red and Blue had not made better use of their big men, although he assured the press that it could have done so.

“I thought the advantage should have been ours in the low post,” he admitted.

But it wasn’t, and the Quakers continued their trend of poor shot selection leading to excessive amounts of bricks.

Miller’s standard explanation seemed just the opposite of his stated mantra of “stay positive,” which on one occasion he repeated three times in a row.

“We’re not at full strength,” Miller said. “I think some guys that aren’t used to playing are getting significant minutes and finding their way a little bit.”

Injured stars and backups stepping into important roles — sounds an awful lot like the position football coach Al Bagnoli found himself in.

This is not to say that basketball is the same as football, or that Miller and the Quakers should, or can, go on some kind of magical run without their best players.

It is to say, however, that Miller needs to figure out a way to integrate his current top players’ abilities.

And he needs to decide on a formula a bit more specific than just staying positive.

ELI COHEN is a sophomore philosophy major from Washington, D.C. He can be contacted at dpsports@dailypennsylvanian.com.

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