Penn women face test in Washington and high-scoring Plum

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The NCAA women's basketball tournament committee gave Penn a Plum assignment in the 64-team draw, but that might not be a good thing.

Mike McLaughlin's 10th-seeded Quakers (24-4) will face Washington (22-7), seeded seventh, Saturday in a Lexington subregional contest. Penn is faced with stopping one of the top scorers in the nation and the leading scorer in the tournament field.

Her name is Kelsey Plum and the 5-foot-8 junior guard from suburban San Diego already has scored 2,296 career points with a season average of 26.2 per game.

"I think we understand we will struggle to stop her," McLaughlin said. "Hopefully we can contain her. She's extremely talented, she can score in all three facets, she can hit pull up jumpers, she can get fouled, she can shoot the three, she's an excellent player."

With Penn's twin towers and shot blockers in 6-3 junior Sydney Stipanovich and 6-3 sophomore Michelle Nwokedi, the Quakers have plenty to concern Seattle coach Mike Neighbors.

"They're very good and they can play with a lot of Power 5 people," he said. "If you took their name off their uniforms you wouldn't know they're an Ivy team."