Great Games in Penn History: February 9, 1982

Thirteen years ago today, Penn recorded its last-ever victory over Temple. Forget whatever you've heard about recent Big 5 games. All those blowouts were cheap imitations played by impostors. As of last night, the real Big 5 is back. After 40 minutes of a tense, well-played game, Penn (8-9, 1-3 Big 5) came away from last night's City Series matchup at the Palestra with a 59-56 victory over Temple (16-5, 2-1). The win ran Penn's unbeaten string to five games and extended the Quakers' dominance over the Owls to four consecutive games. Although neither team ever opened up a lead of more than seven points, there were a few times during the game when there was a chance that Temple might run away from the Quakers. The first occurred at the beginning of the game, as Penn scored only six points in the first nine minutes of the contest. But a good defense held the Owls to 13 points, and when Dave Lardner came in to spark Penn, the Quakers were still in striking distance. Lardner combined with Michael Brown to steal the ball from Temple off a full-court press and then got the ball to Willie Oliphant for a layup. He then proceeded to continue his hot shooting of recent games, and Penn was back in the game. "Dave opened it up," Brown said when asked about Penn's offense. "That opened it up for Avery [Rawlings] in the middle." That it did, but the full effect of Rawlings being open would not be felt until the second half. Until then, Brown (13 first half points) and Lardner (10 points on 5-of-7 first-half shooting) combined to score 23 of Penn's 30 first-half points. One problem the Quakers were having in the first 20 minutes was that Temple was getting numerous second chances. During the half, the Owls collected no less than 12 offensive rebounds, while Penn was only able to grab 12 total caroms in the entire half. In fact, Temple's Granger Hall (6 rebounds in the first period) and Charles Rayne (9 boards) alone outrebounded the whole Penn team in the first half. A big part of Penn's ability to come back from a 32-30 halftime deficit was the fact they took the rebounds away from the Owls. In the second half Temple grabbed only four offensive rebounds, with two of those coming in the final seconds. "We concentrated more on blocking our men out," Rawlings said of the second half. "That, and the guards had to work a little harder to block out Temple's guards." The fact that the Owls guards were no longer able to get to the medium-range rebounds was a big factor in the decrease in offensive rebounds. Another key part of Penn's second half-surge was Rawlings. The junior center scored 12 second-half points (he had 14 for the night) on 4-of-7 shooting from the field and 4-of-4 from the foul line. Rawlings kept the Quakers close, and when Lardner hit a jump shot with 12 minutes, 24 seconds left in the game, the Quakers took their first lead of the night at 42-40. Eighteen seconds later Paul Little gave Penn a five-point lead with a dunk off a steal and a foul shot to complete the three-point play. That play was just part of the outstanding defensive effort Little turned in. The junior captain began the night covering the six foot, eight inch Hall, and then switched to Terrence Stansbury in the second half. Playing man-to-man against Stansbury for much of the second half, Little limited the guard to one-of-three shooting. This came after Stansbury had shot seven of 10 in the first half. Still, even with Rawlings and Lardner (18 points for the night on nine-of-12 shooting) hitting their shots, and the Quakers playing goof team defense, Temple would not let the game get away. In the end, it came down to who would be able to make the big plays at the end of the game. As it turned out, it was the Quakers. "I think they made the right plays at the right times," Temple coach Don Casey said. Some of those right plays were hitting foul shots at the end. Little hit two after another steal, and both Fran McCaffery and Karl Racine hit the front ends of one-and-ones in the last minute of the game. "The fact is that we thought we were a better club than 0-4 in the city," coach Bob Weinhauer said. "The only way to prove that was to win." "This has got to be a high for us," Brown said.