Fran McCaffery hasn’t had much time to get Penn ready, but he likes where the Quakers are so far

As Penn men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery watched one of his team’s practices this week, a point came up that even some of the Palestra faithful might not have considered.

Because the Ivy League strictly limits how much time teams can spend together out of season, McCaffery doesn’t get nearly as much of a chance to work with his players as he had at previous jobs.

There’s no time allowed in the summer, and there was limited time between when the academic year began and the official start of preseason practices on Sept. 26.

“So you teach, and so you prioritize,” he told The Inquirer. “Whether it be transition, motion offense, ball screen defense, transition defense — the things that are going to be critical to winning. Then little by little, you put things in, whether it be set plays, out-of-bounds plays, press attacks, our press, and you be patient.”

The phrase motion offense has long been familiar on 33rd Street, whether on its own or in rivalry with the Princeton offense up the road. How does McCaffery see the term?

“There’s a few variations. Some want to go three out-two in, four out-one in, five out, that’s where it starts. Then, how much ball screening do you do? Is it a continuous ball screen? You see a lot of that now, and people will refer to that as motion offense, but it’s really ball screen continuity.”

McCaffery defines his version as “continuous screening, cutting, movement with a purpose. If you do that, you have a good chance to break the defense down.”

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Then comes the mental part.

“If you have a unselfish team, if the team is committed to winning,” he said. “Because in a motion offense, it’s an equal-opportunity offense, so you’re putting the decision-making in the hands of the players. Whereas if we call a set, we’re looking at a particular player and a particular action. So, I believe in empowering my guys to make plays.”

Among the players who’ve stayed from Steve Donahue’s era, senior forward Ethan Roberts is the standout name, and he will be a leader on and off the floor.

Asked for other names who’ve stood out so far, McCaffery named a lot.

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“Michael Zanoni for sure, I think Augie Gerhart has been really good, Cam Thrower’s been really good, [Niklas] Polonowski,” he said. “I think guys that we would have expected, some veteran guys — Dylan Williams. And then we factor in the freshmen and transfers who are going to be very impactful, whether it be [freshmen] Dalton Scantlebury and Jay Jones, [transfers] TJ Power and Lucas Lueth.”

From there, he turned to the big picture.

“The most important thing, I would say, is this: We’ve had complete buy-in from day one,” McCaffery said. “Guys who are trying to do what we’re teaching, trying to prioritize winning, legitimately liking and caring about each other. That’s essentially what culture is.”

The most attention will be on Power, and everyone knows it. A former five-star recruit at Duke, he transferred to Virginia after a year, then came to Penn to play for a coach who wanted him at Iowa back in the day.

“He has been as professional as you would ever hope he’d be, and I’m not surprised,” McCaffery said. “I know him well, I know his family, I know his character, I know his high school coach, his AAU coach.

“That kid’s a winner, and he came here with one purpose: to help us win. He’s going to be impactful in this league, but he’ll be an impactful player on a national level.”

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Power also seems ready for the academic side of things at Penn, with Duke and Virginia plenty strong in that regard.

“He’s a really bright kid,” McCaffery said. “He appreciates the value of an Ivy League education; he just came from two excellent institutions. But academics have been important to his family, and he’s blended in immediately in that area.”

Power was limited for much of the preseason by an elbow injury. He’s been a full participant this week, and McCaffery called the 6-foot-9 forward “ready to play this weekend” as the season begins.

“We’ll see how much — we’ve got three games coming up quickly” he said. “But he’s been practicing for four or five days.”

Those games are indeed quick. Penn starts its season Friday at the Palestra against Rowan (7 p.m., ESPN+), then plays American in Washington on Sunday, (1 p.m., ESPN+), then visits Providence on Tuesday (7 p.m., ESPN+).

After that, all eyes will turn to what might be the headline matchup in Big 5 pod games, at least in terms of narrative: Donahue’s return to 33rd Street on Nov. 17 as the head coach of St. Joseph’s, eight months after Penn fired him.

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Then comes Penn’s other Big 5 pod game at Drexel, on Nov. 21, and the Cathedral Classic over Thanksgiving weekend at the Palestra with Merrimack, La Salle, and Hofstra. That will bring a contest against a Big 5 opponent that isn’t actually a City Series game. (Those are allowed, for the record.)

The rest of the nonconference slate is in December: the Big 5 Classic, home games vs. Lafayette and NJIT, and road games vs. Rutgers and George Mason. Ivy League play starts Jan. 5 at Princeton, where a Tigers win would give them the lead in the all-time series for the first time in its 122-year history.