Along with the story about the Athletic Department's marketing initiatives that I wrote for today's paper, there was an important but brief sidebar that did not make it online. (As always, PDF here.)

The Athletic Department is likely to continue the controversial season-ticket policy it introduced last season. Student seats behind the west-end basket are general admission, with the lower level reserved for participants in The Line.

“We still occasionally have internal discussions,” senior associate director of athletics Alanna Shanahan said, “but at this point, we’re still holding to the fact that hopefully, long term, this will pay dividends."

Shanahan added that the Athletic Department is internally divided into two opinions. She declined to say where Athletic Director Steve Bilsky fit, or if he straddled both.

“There’s always a camp of people that say, ‘Lets set the standard and hold to it, and if our basketball program is as successful as we all hope, then we’ll be happy that we did this,’” Shanahan said. “Then there’s the other camp that says, ‘Wow, isn’t it painful? We have only maybe 50% of that section filled. Wouldn’t it be nice to allow, maybe five minutes into the game, studnets who are sitting in the upper level down to fill that section.'

“I think there are merits to both. And we’ll probably have that internal battle royal again in the next week or two. And that’s why I say it’s always a tough discussion.”

For now, though, it looks like the policy isn't changing.

"If you had to ask me today," Shanahan said yesterday, "I think we would hold to the protocol that we put in place and hope that the interest grows once again, the team success grows and once again, we have that section packed."

Expect more coverage on The Line as the date -- Oct. 9 -- draws nearer and as Penn makes its decision final.

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My colleague Noah Rosenstein reported last night on men's basketball recruit Cameron Gunter.  The 6-foot-8 forward/center has spoken with the Philadelphia Inquirer and confirmed to them that he is, in fact, headed to Penn.

After Penn nabbed its second 2010 recruit earlier this month, it appears that Glen Miler has grabbed two more recruits.

And just like Austin Kelly, these new recruits hail from the Los Angeles area.

According to the LA Times,  Capistrano Valley (Mission Viejo, Calif) teammates Casey James (6-foot-3 guard) and Kevin Panzer (6-8 forward) have both committed to Penn. James originally gave an early verbal commitment to San Diego back in 2007 (according to ESPN insider), but he's since backed out of that.

ESPN gives James a 76 grade and in December 2007 called him  "the most prolific shooter in the west" alongside a Santa Clara signee. But perhaps Panzer is the bigger catch. For one, he definitely is coming to Penn, as ESPN insider, Rivals and CBB all have him listed as a Penn commit (ESPN has yet to change James' status from the SD verbal). Though he's just the 164th best forward, Panzer gets a 78 from ESPN, which last September said "At his size there may not be another 4-man around the country that can shoot like him." He looked at four Pac-10 schools (Cal, Arizona State, Stanford and Washington) as well as San Diego, Colorado and Gonzaga (the last two schools were on his short list with Penn).

If nothing else, check out this myspace video with Panzer and James. It looks like Penn is going to get some more dunkers.

But with the addition of Panzer -- will there be Panzer tank-inspired roll outs?-- and probably James as well, Penn would have six players from California on its 2010-11 roster: Panzer, James, Kelly, incoming freshman Malcolm Washington (Denzel's son), and rising juniors Conor Turley and  Tyler Bernardini.

Of course, that's assuming no more Californians transfer away.

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In other Ivy recruiting news, it appears that Pe'Shon Howard has backed down from his earlier statement (see #3) that he'd attend Harvard if admitted. Now, in an email to ESPN.com, he said after discussing the matter, he's "wide open and considering every school in the country." In addition to the Crimson, he's looking at Maryland, Stanford, Arkansas, Xavier and other big conference schools.

It might still be over 15 months before he ever plays for Penn, but Austin Kelly is going to be a Quakers hoopster.

Californiapreps.com, a service of Rivals, is reporting that the North Hollywood, Calif., shooting guard from the class of 2010 has verbally committed to Glen Miller's program. (You'll need an account for that site, so see the full text of the article after the jump.)

According to the report, the 6-foot-2 Kelly decided on Penn because of the strong academics, as well as  "a strong relationship with the coaches."

ESPN Insider gives Kelly a 74 grade, which is in the 70-79 range that states: "Player either can earn a scholarship to a top national Division I program or contribute significantly as a freshman at the mid-major level." Specifically,

Kelly has a wiry frame with decent length. He has solid speed and quickness, but he does get great lift on his jump shot. His strength is his jump shooting ability and he is equally efficient in the mid-range area as he is out to the stripe. He has a tendency to shoot off the dribble to get into rhythm, especially in the mid-range area. His shot has a solid release, but he'll need to get stronger to pull-up in traffic. In addition to increasing his strength, he definitely needs to address his perimeter handle. He is solid going right, but overall his handle is shaky, especially when he's trying to separate from defenders.

Fortunately, Kelly realizes he needs to improve his strength. "I have to get a lot bigger to be effective at the Division I level. My biggest challenge is going to be my strength," according to the report.

Kelly led Harvard-Westlake to the Division III California State semifinals before losing to Ocean View, 79-63. Kelly had a team-high 16 points in the game. Overall, his team was 28-7, and won the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section championship with a 13-1 league record.

(HT Basketball U boards)

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1) Penn Athletics finally made its official announcement regarding the men's basketball recruits for the Class of 2013. As I mentioned in a post  last week, the official class only includes three of the five incoming freshmen: Carson Sullivan, Brian Fitzpatrick and Sean Mullan. The other two players, Denzel Washington's son Malcolm and Jack Eggleston's brother Tommy, were not listed because they are considered "preferred walk-ons." None of the five newcomers are listed yet on the 2009-10 roster.

2) If you read my story a few weeks ago, you already know that all the freshmen except Mullan have been playing in the Delaware County Pro-Am summer basketball league. The current Penn players' team is Trad Jazz, which has gone 2-6 so far. Their next game is tomorrow against UNUM (6-2), which includes a number of notable former Penn hoopsters like Brian Grandieri, Mark Zoller, Michael Jordan, Geoff Owens and Jeff Schiffner. Trad Jazz will play its last game Sunday as the league's playoffs begin Monday, though the squad is unlikely to make the postseason.

3) Trad Jazz got both of its wins before Zach Rosen left for Israel. Rosen and Team USA got off to a great start at the Maccabiah games with a blowout win over Mexico, 112-13 (that is not a typo; they actually won by 99 points). Rosen put up eight points and four assists. The next game was a revenge match against France, which beat the  US and forced them to settle for Bronze in 2005, and returned most of its players for the 2009 games. The US won 131-77 behind 25 points by Todd Golden and 23 points by Dan Grunfeld (son of Wizards GM Ernie). Rosen's line -- five points, four assists, three rebounds.

The US was finally tested in its third game of group play against Russia. It was a close game that came down to the end, with the score tied at 71 and just seven seconds remaining. Russia missed the last shot, but they managed a tip-in with .5 seconds remaining and held on for the win. With the loss the US had to beat Argentina to advance to the semi-finals, and the rules are such that a 4-or-more point victory would yield them the first seed and a semi-final matchup with Canada while a less-than-4 point victory would have meant the second seed and a semi-final bout with defending champion Israel.

Team USA  beat Argentina 97-89 today behind Grunfeld's 25 points and eight rebounds. Rosen added eight points and four assists. Now the US is set to play Canada tomorrow at 4 p.m. Israeli time (which is 9 a.m. EDT) with a chance to play the winner of Argentina-Israel in the championship.

It's been weeks since my original post about Sean Mullan, a basketball recruit from Australia. I haven't heard back from Mullan since that original post, so I haven't been able to provide an update on his status... until now. Although I still haven't heard back from the man himself, a reliable source confirmed today that Mullan is officially coming to Penn.

It seems that this might have been in the books for a while at this point.  When I heard from his mother in late May she indicated that everything was just about squared away, but they hadn't received their official documents yet. Then Sean's name showed up in the Penn Directories a few weeks ago, but I still could not take that as confirmation that he was definitely coming.

With Mullan in the bag, the Quakers' 2009 recruiting class is up to five players (though two are unofficial). Mullan joins Carson Sullivan and Brian Fitzpatrick as the official recruits for 2009, while Malcolm Washington and Tommy Eggleston will also join the team as "preferred walk-ons." The distinction, as far as I know, is virtually irrelevant. Penn Athletics has not released an official list of this year's recruits, but it should come very soon. Washington and Eggleston will not be on the official list.

1) It's been a rumor for a while, but the Indiapanolis Star reported that Tommy Eggleston (brother of hoopster Jack) is officially Penn-bound.  Tommy was being recruited in football and basketball, but years of growing up with Jack must have worn off on him, because basketball was his first love. So when his best football offers were to be a recruited walk-on at a D-1 school, he switched his focus to basketball and chose to commit to University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Football inevitably complicated the situation, because Tommy applied to Penn after visiting as a football recruit, but was accepted after switching his focus to basketball. Glen Miller and Co. apparently had recruited him a bit early on in the year, although they did not mention him in any recent comments on recruiting. They did not speak to him until he was accepted (one month after he committed to UWM).  The Ivy League education and chance to play with his brother was enough to persuade Tommy to come to Penn.

Tommy is a 6-5 guard who was a safety in football. I don't know too much about him as a player, but he must be a hard-nosed kid that can probably help the Quakers' backcourt off the bench. UWM is a solid program that makes the tournament pretty regularly and made it to the Sweet 16 in 2005.

2) Various Penn recruiting classes were "officially" announced in the last few weeks. Of course, most of these recruits have been on the radar for a long time now, but as the applications were completed the official Athletic Department announcements were made. Here are links to the 2009 classes for defending Ivy League champion M. Soccer, W. Soccer, Volleyball, Wrestling, Softball, M. Tennis, and W. Golf.

3) The NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Committee decided that the 2010 Women's Lacrosse Final Four will once again be held in Towson, Md. It marks the third time in a row that Towson University hosts the event, and the 12th time since 1986 that the championship games take place in Maryland. (1986, 1987, 1993, 1994 – University of Maryland, College Park; 1998 – University of Maryland, Baltimore County; 1999, 2001 - Johns Hopkins University; 2002 – Loyola College (Maryland); 2005 – U.S. Naval Academy).

1) Tomorrow's big game is approaching as the the W. Lax team heads to Towson, Md., for the Final Four contest against Northwestern (much more on The Buzz tomorrow). Here's the last interview with some Quakers before they left West Philadelphia.

2) Today Penn Athletics formally announced the incoming football freshmen class. Perhaps the highlight of the 34-person class is quarterback Billy Ragone (Chesire, Conn.), who was a 2008 Wendy's Heisman nominee and Connecticut State Player of the Year, as voted by some publications.

3) Here's an interesting look at the commercialization of college sports. It's not specifically relevant to Penn (the Ivy League is the conference the least worried about increasing its profits, in my opinion), but it's a compelling look at the NCAA as a whole. However, you need an account with The Chronicle of Higher Education to read the article, so I'll paste the full text after the jump.

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We've heard rumors that Sean Mullan, a 6-foot-6 swingman from Australia, might be joining the Quakers in the near future. Mullan confirmed via e-mail that he visited campus the weekend of April 24 and is very interested in coming to Penn to play basketball. At this point he is still taking more SAT exams, completing his financial aid documents, and finalizing the rest of his application.

Mullan was highly regarded in Australia while playing for the Illawara Hawks in the New South Wales region of Australia. He is a three-time MVP of the NSW State Championships (2003, 05, and 06) and captained Australia's U17 team. We'll keep you updated with more developments as they come in, but in the meantime, here is a highlight video.

Scout.com says that Carson Sullivan, a shooting guard from Charlotte, N.C., just gave Penn a verbal committment.  His other choices were Liberty, Elon, Appalachin St. and Charlotte.  Here's his ESPN.com profile.

Update: Here's what the Charlotte Observer had to say about Sullivan: "Teammate Carson Sullivan, MVP of last season's Bojangle's Shootout at Marvin Ridge High, committed to the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school. Sullivan injured his knee in July and is recovering from surgery."

Soccer isn't often discussed on this blog, but recently College Soccer News released its top 40 incoming classes on the men's side. Penn came in at 36, as its five-member class is considered "a difference maker." The ranking was tops for the Ivy League, and only one of Penn's 2008 opponents made the list, as Villanova placed just two spots ahead of the Quakers at 34. The Wildcats visit Rhodes Field Wednesday Oct. 1.

The Quakers are coming off of a 6-9-2 (3-4-0 Ivy) season, which was a let down after the team went 9-4-2 in 2006, just missing an at-large berth to the NCAA tournament. So a strong incoming class is just what the Quakers could use this fall, especially after losing three starters to graduation.

Fortunately the two most-touted incoming freshmen, Christian Barreiro and Thomas Brandt, play midfielder and defender respectively, the two positions that Penn lost starters. Nick Unger, another incoming midfielder, is the brother of current Quaker midfielder Kevin who scored twice last year. The final two incoming freshmen are Eric Guo (midfield) and Jake Levin (defense).