A year ago, Penn men’s basketball’s 82-71 win at Maryland-Baltimore County was something of a coup for newly appointed interim coach Jerome Allen and a team that had lost 10 straight to start the season.
It was the first positive result in a 2009-10 campaign already marked by disappointment.
Fast forward about 11 months, and the tables will be turned when the Retrievers (0-5) come to the Palestra tonight at 7 p.m. to take on the Quakers (2-3).
UMBC has been relatively potent on offense so far this season, boasting three players — Travis King, Chris De La Rosa and Chase Plummer — who each average at least 9.8 points per contest. King and De La Rosa each drop 15 per night.
“Coach [Randy] Monroe has turned it into a solid program down there,” Allen said.
The Retrievers have fetched an impressive 72.2 points per game as a team, compared to just 62.2 for Penn.
This will make it important for the Quakers to crack down on defense and not allow King — who shoots 61 percent from the field — to get heated up.
But the boys from Catonsville, Md., are 0-5 for a reason.
And that reason appears to be defense — or lack thereof.
The Retrievers allow an America East Conference-worst 86.2 points per game, allowing opponents to shoot 48.5 percent from the floor and 36.9 percent from behind the three-point arc.
Those numbers bode well for freshman phenom Miles Cartwright — known affectionately in his hometown of Van Nuys, Calif., as Mizzo — who shined offensively in the Red and Blue’s 82-58 loss at No. 3 Pittsburgh (7-0) over Thanksgiving break.
Cartwright recorded a game-high 22 points, an assist, a rebound and steal on 7-for-8 shooting including 3-for-4 from deep against the Panthers.
“Miles is working hard,” Allen said. “I’m pleased with his progress thus far.”
And the new guy isn’t the only one who should be happy to feel the soothing caresses of a porous UMBC defense.
A stingy Pitt front held Zack Rosen and Jack Eggleston to just 27 combined points, but the Retrievers relate to the Panthers the way those two animals might relate in the wild; one is a ferocious jungle cat, the other a playful household pet.
And the rankings reflect nature’s law.
Although only the NCAA’s top 25 teams are typically identified by their ranks — as determined by the Associated Press or a coaches poll — all 348 Division I college basketball teams are graded on their Rating Percentage Index.
Out of the 348, Pittsburgh comes in unsurprisingly at No. 3, while Penn and UMBC sit at No. 200 and No. 339, respectively.
But despite Penn’s apparent statistical advantage, Allen was quick to emphasize that oft-used, oft-abused truism about not underestimating your opponent.
“It’s Division I basketball, and we know we have to respect them,” Allen said. “We’ve got a lot of work that we gotta do.”
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