Q&A with Penn men’s basketball coach Steve Donahue, part 2

Media expectations for Penn basketball are the lowest they’ve been since coach Steve Donahue’s first season on campus in 2015. The Quakers were tabbed to finish seventh in the Ivy League, ahead of only Dartmouth. 

Predictive analytics websites have a slightly rosier outlook and project Penn to be in the mix for a third or fourth-place finish, which would be good enough to earn a trip to Ivy Madness in Providence.

With the season just three weeks away, Ivy Hoops Online spoke with Donahue to take a deep dive into how the Quakers will operate with seven new players on the roster.

Both questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length:

Check out part 1 of the conversation here. 

IHO: You mentioned the nonconference schedule. Looking at this year, there’s a couple of cracks at top-100 opponents on the calendar and they’re all relatively close in terms of travel, all driving distance. You were able to knock the D[ivision] III opponents off the schedule. Was it easier to get games this year compared to other offseasons? How have the dynamics changed for you guys in terms of getting games at home and finding people willing to do a two-for-one?

SD: People look at your record and as much as we can in college basketball, look at who’s coming back. We made sure we did that before the transfers because I wanted some games that were manageable and drivable. We’re only playing 27 games this year because we’re playing that exemption [the Cathedral Classic] and counting those games.

I just thought it was too much last year. We have new faces this year. I think we have a chance to be a really good basketball team. But I also want to have some success and try to see if we can get a day of practice, followed by a game, followed by practice. I think we’ve got good teams, but we don’t have like last year — two top-10s and two top-20s and flying all over the place.

I do think it’s a good schedule, but I think it’s one we could have some success with.

IHO: How did your approach and preparation for the transfer portal change heading into this offseason versus last offseason?

SD: The year before, honestly, we didn’t even look at it. We were kind of blindsided with Jordan Dingle. Obviously, we took the biggest hit with the player of the year not coming back and it kind of surprised us. At the same time, Max Martz doesn’t come back as well, and they were going to be two fifth-year guys. I think August Mahoney would have been the only other fifth-year guy in the league.

We just didn’t want to be in that situation again. Going into the year, Clark Slajchert could have slowed down his academics and come back. Obviously, Tyler Perkins [was] anticipated, but we determined early on that we’re going to make the portal part of our strategy this year.

That being said, it’s easier said than done. It’s extremely hard and difficult, labor-intense, hours and hours. I give my assistants credit for finding three kids that are really good basketball players. All three of them could have been paid good money somewhere else and decided the Ivy League and Penn is where they want to be.

They have to do as much as they can academically — even though they can get accepted — to be eligible, meaning summer classes, as well. To think that you can get three players like that, I think it’s pretty remarkable. I think if we got one, we would have been ecstatic.

IHO: I wanted to dive into the portal class a little bit and start with Dylan Williams. I know he had 15, 16 other offers from other D1s and he chose to come here. Do you see him as a primary ball-handler type on offense and where do you see his skill set fitting in?

SD: That’s the other thing we’ve gotten away from. Besides not being big, we just didn’t have that court general out there. Probably the last one was Darnell Foreman. So we went out looking for that as well.

That’s how I see Dylan. Dylan played at a very high level. He took a team to the Division I JuCo national final in Hutchinson [Kan.]. He’s a great floor general. He sees the floor, runs the offense. Already, I can tell how much I probably didn’t realize I missed [having a floor general], because he takes a lot off your plate.

He finds guys, picks up the ball defensively, all the little things. He’s older now. It’s not like he’s coming in as a freshman. He’s 21 years old and confident.

The thing that I think is kind of surprising about him is — and you never notice until you get him — the intellect. He already knows the plays, telling people where to go and allowing the other players to relax in their roles.

IHO: With Ethan Roberts, he’s someone who’s coming over having already gotten rookie of the year honors from a peer league. I know that he missed last year due to injury. Where do you see him and Michael [Zanoni] fitting in as floor spacers and how do their skill sets compare and contrast?

SD: I think we’re going to play three perimeters and more “fours” and “fives.” Both Michael and Ethan will be on the wings.

I think they’re different. Ethan is just a really good playmaker, scorer, shooter. He does a little bit of everything. I don’t know if we had somebody here with all those attributes. He can get to the foul line. He competes at a high level. He can make plays in tight spots. He’s a year older and confident.

I think Zanoni is one of those prototypical gunslingers. You give him a split second, he’s rising up. He shoots hard shots. He’s a hard shot-maker. He guards and rebounds but he’s not the playmaker and he won’t get to the foul line like I anticipate Ethan doing.

IHO: Given that you want to roll out more two-big lineups, have you been experimenting using Nick Spinoso in combinations with Augie Gerhart, Bradyn Foster, Michelangelo Oberti? How do the dynamics of spacing and distribution change when you’re rolling Nick — who has almost operated as a point forward — with another big out there?

SD: I think it takes some work.

I studied the European game for years. It’s what the majority of the world plays outside of the United States. I think that’s why we have trouble in the Olympics, honestly. They play with physicality.

Now, the bigs have got to be skilled. They don’t have to be great three-point shooters, but they have to have a fast IQ. They’ve got to make quick decisions. They’ve got to be able to pass, dribble, know where to go.

Now, we’ve always recruited bigs like that. I don’t think Nick and Augie are shooters, but I think they really have a sense of where to play.

Now, we had to design certain things and reads that we have over the last six months and I like how it looks. I also think we’ll rotate those bigs more often. You’ll see Johnnie Walter off the bench and Michelangelo Oberti’s been a huge, pleasant — I wouldn’t say surprise, but I don’t know if I thought he’d be this good, this soon.

So I think those four are ready to rotate in those positions. I think the difficult spot is who they guard on the other end at times. Their ability to guard 6’5” “three” men when teams play small. We’re going to have to live with that, get better at that and hopefully use our size to our advantage down at the other end.

IHO: With Sam Brown, he came in and the shooting stroke was as advertised. What do you think are reasonable expectations for him in terms of where he can make strides as a sophomore?

SD: The one thing you never know until you get a kid is what kind of worker they are, and Sam is just a basketball savant. He just eats everything up.

I think the surprising thing about him is that he’s very athletic. He’s athletic for any league. I think that surprises people. It surprised me. But he keeps working on it and he’s gotten better. Now he’s got a 35-inch standstill vertical. He’s a beast in the weight room.

So he’s finishing with two-hand dunks. He’s just someone that keeps getting better. I think the good thing I like about [this year’s system]  is that we have point guards that can take that kind of responsibility off him and he’ll be a simple playmaker. But he’ll be a scorer, shooter, finisher, probably more often than I anticipated.

I anticipate him to have a huge breakout year as a sophomore.

IHO: With Jordan Dingle, there were a lot of NBA-style ball screen actions that tried to get him going downhill. Tyler Perkins could slash a little bit. Who on the current roster do you think is maybe best positioned to operate as a slasher who can take guys down off the dribble?

SD: The thing I always felt the last couple years was that both Clark and Jordan were so good in that mid-range. I had years where you’d look on Synergy, you couldn’t find us. We were the only team in the country that took no mids. And then we get these two kids that are really good at it, and the numbers bear it out. Almost 60%, so it’s a good shot.

But in my heart, that’s still a hard way to live. So every ball screen we had was going downhill for them. I think the difference you’ll see this year is we’re creating offense by bringing two through the ball in those actions and finding people, whether it’s drop-downs, spraying it out for threes or just getting the defense chasing.

I think Dylan does that. A.J. Levine does that. Ethan Roberts does that. Sam Brown does that. They’re going to be able to do that, and with multiple bigs, I think we’ll get that action a lot.

IHO: Where do you think the freshmen stand now in terms of ability to compete? I was watching A.J. Levine’s high school games at the end of the season. I saw him hit what should have been a game-winning three on one foot. He kind of looked like Darnell a little bit, willing to play through pain.

SD: A.J., both him and Michelangelo Oberti, I went in thinking: “I’m not going to even think about relying on these guys. I just want them to develop.”

Those two have shown they’re in the mix. A.J., coming back to the weight room, he’s just as good an athlete as you’ll see in this league. It shocked me. Thirty-nine-inch standstill vertical jump, dunks with two hands, 5’11”. With that, he’s probably the best on-ball defender we have. He picks up full-court. I think he’s been inconsistent with his decision-making, gets sped up at times, but he finishes. He shot the ball well from three and he’s someone who’s going to be in the mix.

He’s ready to be in the rotation.