Not for the first time, Temple coach Fran Dunphy took a seat a few places down from Drexel's Bruiser Flint for a night of Palestra basketball.
This time, though, Dunphy cradled a half-eaten bag of popcorn.
The pair - and at least 80 others - were gathered at the Bridge: Cinema de Lux for the premiere of The Palestra: Cathedral of Basketball.
Produced and directed by 2004 women's basketball alumna Mikaelyn Austin, the documentary chronicled the history of the Palestra through the eyes of some of its most heralded figures.
Unsurprisingly for a group so attached to "college basketball's most historic gym," they ate it up.
"I remember her coming by my house and filming it, but I didn't know what the finished product would look like," said Corky Calhoun, who was an All-American at Penn in 1972 before continuing to the NBA.
"I thought it was great. She did a great job."
Austin, a Fine Arts and Graphic Design major, was inspired to film the documentary when she heard a story about the experiences of the 1977-78 Penn women's team.
"Their game went into overtime, and the powers that be said 'you have to leave, because the men have to play,'" explained Austin, who is also co-producing a documentary about Philadelphia pro sports. "They said 'no, we're not leaving', so they stayed and played the game through."
She delved more into the story of the team, and eventually the history of the Palestra. She gradually became more interested by what she learned.
Eventually, Austin decided that a documentary about the gym would be a good first foray into filmmaking.
"Just the amount of history in the building, period; I was just shocked by the people who knew more about it," she said.
Her interviewees composed a cast of several dozen, which included heralded Big 5 coaches like Dunphy and Temple legend John Chaney, players such as Calhoun and Doug Overton, and basketball writers such as John Feinstein and Dick "Hoops" Weiss.
"When they found out [what] it was about, the second they heard, it didn't matter that it was a woman," she said. "It didn't matter that it was someone who was 23 years old."
"I can probably count on one finger the number of times I got turned down [for an interview]."
For some of the Big 5 veterans in attendance, it was a reminder of the atmosphere during the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday doubleheaders that were played at the Palestra.
"There's nothing like running out there, being a part of those doubleheaders," said Flint, who played at Saint Joseph's during the 1980s before taking the head coach at Drexel.
"I think she captured it a little bit for people to understand."
That, too, was a goal for Austin, who said she was embarrassed that some basketball fans at Penn didn't even know about the rich history of their gym.
And for Philadelphia basketball's big names, their reactions showed Austin it was a mission worth undertaking.
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