Penn clinches third consecutive Ivy crown

Quakers sweep Brown, Yale at emotional Palestra The tears rolling down Jerome Allen's face after the game said more about last Saturday night than his whispery voice ever could have. It was not really a time for words anyway. Earlier in the evening, the Penn seniors had stood together at center court in the Palestra one final time before their final game in the historic arena. Even as 6,400 faithful fans rose to acknowledge them in a 10-minute standing ovation, somehow there was a sense it was not enough. It could not be. There was simply no way a pregame ceremony could capture the full spectrum of emotions -- from sadness to elation to pride -- played out in the Palestra over the previous four years. But now, with the Quakers' 82-57 victory over Yale finally in the books, the feelings of Allen and his teammates came pouring out. "I tried to talk myself into the fact that this wasn't the last game for these five kids, even though it was their last home game," said Penn coach Fran Dunphy, his own eyes welling up. "I needed it for my own sanity." For guard Matt Maloney, who made the most of his final night at the Palestra with a team-high 19 points against the Elis, the finality of it all had struck him earlier in the day. "It started to hit me a little bit when I was walking in the front door of the Palestra, and [senior guard] Scott [Kegler] brought up that it was the last time we would walk through those doors to play a game," said Maloney, who buried five three-pointers on the night. "And then when I walked into the locker room, I was thinking of the all the times I've had in this building." Maloney only needed to look back 24 hours to recall the day the Quakers captured their third consecutive Ivy League championship. Friday night Penn overwhelmed an injury-riddled Brown team, 85-55, to secure the automatic bid to the 1995 NCAA Tournament. But even as the Penn seniors basked in the nostalgia of their final Ivy weekend, there was an underlying sense of indifference among the Quakers, as though they were still waiting for some kind of vindication another Ancient Eight title simply could not provide. "I get the feeling the seniors think there is still some unfinished business," Dunphy said. "And they would like to finish this thing out." "To be honest, if we didn't win it this year, we would have been very disappointed," Kegler said. "I think the championship was ours for the winning and we went out and got it. The next step is going 14-0, and then to go on to the tournament and make some noise. That's really our end goal -- to see how far we can go." Neither the Bears, with star guards Eric Blackiston and Brian Lloyd sidelined with injuries, nor the Elis, whose uniforms and their athleticism are straight out of Hoosiers, gave the Quakers (21-5, 13-0 Ivy League) much of a challenge. Brown (13-12, 8-5) simply did not have the firepower to match Penn for 40 minutes. The next night, the Quakers' blistering 9-of-13 shooting from behind the arc in the first half against Yale (9-17, 5-9) eliminated all doubt about the outcome. "There's a point," Maloney said, "where you say we almost want to go out [in Ivy League games] and execute and work on the things we do in practice to prepare ourselves for the tournament. But then at the same time, we know we have to win these games to get to the tournament." More than anything, the ceremonial weekend was for the Quakers faithful who postponed their spring break vacations to witness the end of an era in Penn basketball and pay tribute to the class that brought a winning tradition back to the Palestra. It was a weekend for them to catch a final glimpse of Allen convulsing and exploding past his defender with a stutter step that has broken down the laws of physics nearly as often as it has broken down opposing defenses. Or to hang on to the image of Maloney, the portrait of confidence, sinking trey after trey while hundreds of Red and Blue fans raise their arms in unison in the background. Or Kegler, leaning in and releasing just over an outstretched hand as he toes the arc. It was a weekend to see Eric Moore muscle his way across the Palestra's blood-red lane and drop in his little hook one final time. Or to see Shawn Trice disorient his defender with a lightning spin move and drive past a cringing contingent of Red and Blue cheerleaders along the baseline. By season's end, the Penn seniors intend to leave their fans with something more substantial. "We definitely have it in the back of our minds that we want to go undefeated three years in a row," Maloney said. "That would be a great feat, but it is more of a great feat for our fans than for us right now because we know we still have a job to do." Allen agreed. "It isn't over yet," the two-time Ivy League Player of the Year said. "Not for myself, not for Shawn, not for Eric, not for Matt, not for Scott. Not for any of us."

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