It was hyped as student versus teacher, and for good reason.
Fran Dunphy’s No. 19 Temple squad was supposed to have its way with a Penn team led by his vastly less experienced former star.
But from the opening tip on — especially as the midpoint of the second half passed — this was just another competitive, hard-fought Big 5 basketball game.
The result was officially recorded as another loss for Penn, 60-45. But for a program that has been rebuilding since Dunphy left in 2006, the atmosphere and crowd of 6,353—the largest at the Palestra this season—provided a welcome spark to an otherwise dull season.
“I’m so happy for our guys to come home in front of a decent crowd and have an opportunity to play in a Big 5 game,” coach Jerome Allen said. “For them it’s all about the experiences and opportunities.”
Although the disciplined Temple team (14-3, 2-1 Big 5) represented one of the season’s toughest tests, for most of the game, the Quakers were up to the task. With 2:24 left in the first half Penn (1-11, 0-2) was within two, and it stayed in the contest for much of the second half, cutting the lead to five with 8:57 left.
Dunphy noted that the Quakers took it to the Owls, not the other way around.
“We were almost in a protect mode rather than an aggressive mode,” he said.
In the opening minutes, it looked as if Temple would be able to exploit its advantage down low. The Owls’ first five buckets were scored by sophomore center Micheal Eric and 6-foot-9 forward Lavoy Allen.
But the Quakers quickly adjusted and sealed off the inside. Eric finished with a quiet nine points and five rebounds, while Allen — the current Big 5 Player of the Week, who entered averaging a double-double—was held to just six points on 3-for-9 from the field.
“Sometimes a game just flows like that,” said Temple guard Ryan Brooks, who scored 11 of his game-high 15 points in the second half. “We were having success inside early … and I think we got away from that a little bit.
“You’ve got to see what’s working and stay with it.”
The Quakers, meanwhile, turned in a balanced scoring effort. Forward Jack Eggleston led the way with 14 points while Zack Rosen and Dan Monckton added ten points each in an offensive showing that included 14 assists on 18 made field goals.
“The past couple weeks we’ve been working on just getting ball and body movement and not necessarily taking the first available shot,” the coach said.
And with a surprisingly close game breaking out, the Allen-Dunphy dynamic took a back seat.
“Once the ball went up in the air, pretty much everything [besides the game] went out the window,” Allen said. “At the end of the day, this game wasn’t about Fran Dunphy and Jerome Allen. It was about Temple versus Penn.”
As it turned out, it was about a feisty Penn underdog giving the heavyweight Temple its best shot.
“We scrapped, we hustled, we were in the game [and] we made our run,” Rosen said. “I thought we had a winnable game.”
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