What a difference a year makes.
The men’s basketball team’s 69-64 victory over Davidson Saturday at the Palestra marked an important transition for coach Jerome Allen and the Quakers.
Not only was the game Allen’s first as John R. Rockwell Head Coach of Men’s Basketball but it was also an important gauge of how far the Red and Blue have come thus far under their dapper leader.
Last season’s contest against Davidson, a 79-50 drubbing which came during the middle of the 6-22 campaign, was Allen’s first game as interim coach.
Less than a year later, the result was strikingly different.
“[Last year, we played] a team that was one week or two weeks with Jerome,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop said after the game. “They went through a full season with [Allen], and now, obviously, they’re much more in tune to what he’s expecting from them.”
Allen echoed the sentiment: “This is a new team.”
It would have been tough to predict that freshman Miles Cartwright would be able to take over in his first 20 minutes of college basketball, but there was definitely a sense that the Red and Blue knew what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it.
No one embodied that drive more than senior forward Jack Eggleston, who controlled much of the second half with his dominant rebounding and inside presence.
“To me, it seemed like every missed shot that [Davidson] had in the second half, Jack Eggleston got the rebound,” Allen said. “I thought my mind was playing tricks on me.”
But alas, no magic, just good old-fashioned passion and intensity, Eggleston finished the game with 11 rebounds.
Allen seems to have been able to infuse his own passion into his team, much in the same way a master chef might infuse his signature dish with a secret flavor.
And revenge was at least one flavor dominant in the Quakers’ locker room before the game.
Indeed, months of training under Allen may have made the team a more fierce competitor, but it did little to eradicate the sour taste left by Davidson’s 29-point drubbing of the Red and Blue last season.
“Every day in practice we have a practice plan … it has our thought for the day,” Eggleston said. “And for the last three practices before the game, it was simply ‘79-50.’”
But unlike last year, in which the losses seemed to never end, the Quakers were able to harness their previous failure and turn it into success.
This should prove an important skill after games at No. 4 Pittsburgh and No. 10 Kentucky — both contests in which Penn is a large underdog.
Indeed, the ability to keep their poise — which the Quakers did against Davidson despite relinquishing a first-half lead — will either prove a huge asset this year, or, if they are unable keep their heads level, a detriment.
But Eggleston doesn’t think that should be a problem for this squad.
“[The win] showed a sense of maturity on our part.”
And with a roster that currently boasts seven players who have averaged at least 20 minutes per game over a complete season, the Quakers have the experience to get the job done.
ELI COHEN is a junior philosophy major from Washington, D.C. He can be contacted at dpsports@theDP.com
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