Dave Zeitlin: Philly's coaches pick Penn

There is parity and then there is Penn.

At least that's what the leading basketball coaches of Philly were saying during Saturday's "Coaches vs. Cancer" open practice session.

Here's who each Philly coach (minus La Salle's Billy Hahn, who scampered away before I could pose the question) predicted to win the Big 5 crown.

Villanova coach Jay Wright: "The Penn Quakers. The most valuable commodity in college basketball is experienced seniors, and they have that."

St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli: "Penn, no question about it. They have all their players back and one of the hidden gems in coaching -- [Penn coach Fran] Dunphy is as good as anyone can be. They have a dominant, dominant team."

Temple coach John Chaney: "Everybody's in front of us. We're a very young team -- we're not even a team yet. Penn is going to be great. They have most of their players returning, I guess. Who's returning?"

And Drexel coach Bruiser Flint, also weighted in: "They're loaded up. They have two of the better players in the area in Koko [Archibong] and Ugonna [Onyekwe] and Andy Toole showed that he was the missing link. They deserve all the respect they're getting in the preseason polls."

So it's all-but-unanimous. The best team in Philly this season isn't a Big East or Atlantic 10 team -- it's the boys from the Ivy League.

"That's real nice of them to say," Dunphy said, "but we're looking forward to a great challenge. We have a chance to be a good team."

A chance? Are you kidding me, Coach? This team is picked by virtually every college basketball preview magazine to win the Ivy League. ESPN.com has declared the Quakers to be the fourth-best Mid-Major team in the country. Onyekwe, Archibong and Toole are all preseason picks to again be first-team All Ivy players.

Based on all the media exposure, you would think Penn being a good team is more than a chance -- it's a certainty.

"We're not listening to that," said Toole, while signing autographs on Saturday. "We can't -- the coaches won't let us. Expectations don't mean much. Last year, we had no expectations and we did well."

That's true. Last year, the Quakers were coming off a miserable 12-17 season and had lost two of their top players to graduation in Lamar Plummer and Geoff Owens. The same media expected them to have another subpar season.

Perhaps they used that as motivation -- what team doesn't love the underdog role?

But this season is different. The Quakers must defend their Big 5 and Ivy League titles. And the expectations are monumental, whether they like it or not.

People are talking. They're saying this is the best Penn team since the Jerome Allen-Matt Maloney days of the early 1990s, even since the fabled Final Four team of 1979. They're saying this is the team that can win a game -- maybe even two or three -- in the NCAA tournament.

High expectations, of course, bring a whole lot of pressure.

More pressure than a bunch of college kids can handle?

"We're putting all the [predictions] away," junior guard Jeff Schiffner said. "Every season is independent of the last. This year, we're starting from fresh."

Right now, the Penn players are saying all the right things. They're not cocky, they're not brash, and they're surely not going to provide bulletin board material for any of their opponents.

They're a good team. A damn good team. Let's just wait until the season starts to determine if they're a special one.

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