At Penn, a whiteboard and ‘hustle’ turned a 2-6 start into a trip to the women’s Ivy tournament

Just past the halfway mark of the Ivy League women’s basketball season, Penn was in a 2-6 rut. Around the same time, the team introduced a new tool into its practices: a whiteboard.

Quakers coach Mike McLaughlin wanted to hammer home to his team that “scoring isn’t the biggest thing.” To do this, he began tracking “hustle plays” on the whiteboard — and with the help of his staff, he logged every player’s total rebounds, steals, deflections, blocks, and charges.

Each player’s total is added up at the end of practice. Again and again, the winner has been freshman center Katie Collins, who was named Ivy League Rookie of the Year on Tuesday.

“I think [Collins is] definitely a fighter,” teammate Mataya Gayle said earlier this season. “She’s one of the hardest workers. We tally points — like deflections, steals, all that — and she’s consistently winning that. That testifies [just] how hard she works every single day.”

Added Collins: “I really try to make sure I practice as hard as I play, so trying to get those rebounds at practice and steals and blocks is important. … It’s definitely something that we want to win, because we’re all so competitive.”

With their backs against the wall, the Quakers (15-12, 6-8 Ivy) rattled off four consecutive wins to take control of the fourth and final seed in the Ivy tournament. Although they dropped their final two games against Harvard and Princeton, a NET ranking tiebreaker pushed the Quakers past Brown — with whom they shared an equal league record — and into the Ivy Madness.

On Friday, they will face No. 1 seed Columbia (22-5, 13-1), coached by Megan Griffith of King of Prussia, in the tournament’s first round in Providence, R.I. (4:30 p.m., ESPN+).

» READ MORE: Penn’s Katie Collins is the latest freshman standout fueling the Quakers’ basketball success

Collins played a significant role in Penn’s late-season surge. During the Quakers’ four-game winning streak from Feb. 14 to 28, she averaged 13 points and eight rebounds. Against Yale, Collins recorded a career-high 21 points alongside 10 rebounds, four assists, and five blocks to start the Quakers’ streak.

“It’s different coming in without ever having played against [Ivy competition] before. We’ve watched the games, but it’s just something that we hadn’t experienced,” Collins said.

“That was definitely hard initially. … I think that it’s definitely a little intimidating going in at first, but we did a great job turning it around this season. We just took it one game at a time because we had a goal of getting to the tournament,” Collins said.

The last player to be unanimously awarded Ivy Rookie of the Year honors was Penn center Eleah Parker in 2018. Collins averaged 10 points in 27 starts, led the league in total blocks (45) and ranked third in total rebounds (197). She is the second straight Quakers freshman to earn the award, following Gayle, who won last season.

“I am extremely grateful for the honor and could not have done it without the support of my coaches and teammates,” Collins wrote to The Inquirer via text.

In the Quakers’ regular-season finale against Princeton, seniors Lizzy Groetsch and Stina Almqvist took the Palestra court for the final time. The Quakers fell to the Tigers, 67-53, marking Penn’s 14th consecutive loss to Princeton (21-6, 12-2).

Neither Grotesch nor Almqvist, the latter a first-team All-Ivy selection, beat Princeton during their careers. Although they reached Ivy Madness in the past two seasons, the senior captains have never won a conference tournament game.

“It’s definitely motivating,” Collins said of playing for the team’s seniors. “Lizzy and Stina bring, while they’re different players, so much to our team. We definitely respect both of them a lot. We want to give them a chance to — first of all, maybe a chance to beat Princeton again — but we really want to give them a chance to get that Ivy League tournament win. And we have the opportunity to do it.”

Princeton sits on the other side of the bracket with Harvard (22-4, 11-3). For Penn to get a crack against the Tigers again, the Quakers will have to upset Columbia — a daunting task.

The Lions roared past Penn in both of their matchups this season. Columbia won both games — 74-59 and 79-54 — and dominated the Quakers in rebounding en route to its first outright Ivy League title.

“We need to really focus defensively and make sure that we get defensive rebounds,” Collins said. “When we don’t, we have to get out to the shooters because [Columbia] succeeded on a lot off of kick-outs on offense.”

A pair of All-Ivy guards lead Columbia. Sophomore Riley Weiss leads the team with 18 points per game, shooting 37.2% from beyond the arc. Meanwhile, senior Kitty Henderson was named the Ivy’s Defensive Player of the Year, averaging 2.8 steals in Ivy play.

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