Students go to Drexel University for what the school calls “experiential learning,” and that’s exactly what the Penn women’s basketball team got Wednesday night: an educational trouncing.
The final score, 72-55, was bad enough, but it hides the magnitude of the defeat after the two easy victories that started the Quakers’ season. The two Big 5 rivals played about even for the first six minutes, trading baskets and misses. But by the end of the first quarter, the Dragons had ballooned their 10-9 lead to 27-13.
In the second quarter, Drexel scored 17 points; Penn scored one. The game was half over, but over entirely.
Penn outscored Drexel in the second half but never got close, and Drexel had the luxury of using its bench players extensively: They played 40% of the team’s minutes for the night. Put another way, Penn’s output in 100% of the game was just one point better than that of the Drexel starters in their 60%.
The two teams are 33rd Street neighbors, the Penn road trip Wednesday a fun stroll to the north — the shortest road trip in Division I basketball. But Penn and Drexel hadn’t played one another in six years (freshman Kayla Padilla led Penn’s winning effort then with 17 points), and Drexel has been ascendant since, reaching the NIT three times and the NCAA Tournament twice, including last spring.
This fall, before handling Penn, Drexel started the season by beating Pittsburgh and Marist. Leading scorer Amaris Baker is back, along with two other starters. Baker, a grad student and guard, was good for 18 points on 7-for-15 shooting Wednesday night. Laine McGurk, a junior guard, had 12 points, and senior forward Molly Lavin had 10 points and 10 rebounds.
To be fair to Penn, not many teams could have kept pace with Drexel’s Dragons in the first half, let alone slain them. These were fire-breathing Dragons, hitting a torrid 65% of their shots in the first quarter, including 67% from deep. In the second quarter they were merely human, though talented, shooting 37%.
The Quakers hit a more than respectable 46% in the first quarter, though zip-for-5 from long, and then had that disastrous 0-for-11 from the field in the second quarter. For the game, Penn shot a paltry 29% from the field, 21% from deep.
Junior guard Mataya Gayle had the best night for the Quakers, as she often does: 13 points on 6-for-10 shooting. In fact, when you factor in her game-leading seven assists, she made or contributed to most of Penn’s points.
Center Tina Njike, Gayle’s classmate but only this season beginning to play a prominent role, collected 11 rebounds but hit just two of her nine shots (along with five foul shots) to finish with nine points. And usually dependable sophomore forward Katie Collins had a dozen rebounds but just one bucket on nine shots for five points. Guard Sania Caldwell gave the Quakers a boost off the bench, converting on three of five shots, all from deep, for nine points.
Penn (2-1) will take any lessons it learned at Drexel up to Long Island to play Hofstra on Saturday afternoon. Drexel (3-0) will host Loyola Maryland the next day.