With flying colors

Almost exactly a year ago, Glen Miller was just a name mentioned as a possible candidate for the Penn hoops coaching job, left vacant after longtime head man Fran Dunphy left for Temple a week earlier. He was the coach at Brown, and even said on April 15 that he was not interested in the Quakers job.

A week later, Miller was named the 17th head coach in program history.

Fast forward a year, and he is already working on season two. But season one was not so bad either.

The Quakers are coming off their third consecutive Ivy title, no easy task for a new coach to achieve.

"I knew the expectation level was to repeat as Ivy League champions," Miller said. "Anything less would be a failure."

Make no mistake, though - Miller may have had the two-time defending champions and three seniors who had been major contributors for several years, but he had to work to cut down the Palestra nets.

At his introductory press conference, Miller said that some of the Quakers were "a little bit resistant" to his hiring.

"Steve Danley put me on trial," he said.

While the tension may not have ever gotten to a dangerous level, senior Mark Zoller acknowledged that there are difficulties with a new coach.

"You're used to something for three years and then it's totally different," he said.

Miller introduced new offensive and defensive schemes, and moved senior Ibrahim Jaaber to point guard.

But Miller resisted making wholesale changes, respecting what the seniors had accomplished.

"We definitely took into account the experience that these guys had," Miller said. "If we could incorporate some things they knew it would make the transition that much easier."

Either way, Penn scuffled early, and was 6-5 heading into a nationally televised matchup with then-No. 2 North Carolina.

Penn took a 10-point lead midway through the first half, and then the Tar Heels made a run.

It was a big run, as Carolina went on to win 102-64, and the Quakers seemed to just give up in the second half.

"We did some good things early on in that game, but then the wheels fell off," Miller said. "We got our tails handed to us on national TV."

To Miller, and several players, that was the turning point.

While the team was still down South, Miller essentially ran the players into the ground with intense physical practices. He wasn't sure if they were behind his system, and needed to drill it into them until he became sure.

However, Mark Zoller said it was not necessarily so dire.

"I don't think it was ever close to a bad situation," he said.

After the tough practices, an exhausted Penn had just enough to beat struggling Elon 66-64.

When the Quakers returned north, they did so with a vengeance, ending the season 16-2, including 13-1 in Ivy League play and with a dramatic win over Temple and Dunphy, when Zoller hit three free throws with under two seconds left for the win.

Miller called that game the highlight of his year, but he also was thrilled to reach his first NCAA Tournament as a Division I head coach.

It didn't hurt that he had coached against Penn twice a year for seven years.

"He understood their strengths and weaknesses," Yale coach James Jones said of his counterpart. "It definitely helped."

Jones, the only Ivy coach to beat Miller this year, is more interested to see what he can do in the future than what he did with a strong team this year.

"I think his real impact on what he did will be seen after the recruiting class that he has coming in," Jones said.

Miller's system emphasizes offense, and it showed. Penn averaged close to six points a game more this season than it did in 2004-05, and the Quakers displayed a fast-break up-tempo style that was alien to them.

Zoller was very happy in Miller's scheme, calling him "one of the best offensive coaches I've ever been around."

And whatever tension may have been around a year ago, it is no longer here.

He "is doing a terrific job with the program, and he hasn't missed a beat," Zoller said.

At least after year No. 1, that seems to be the case.

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