Allen and the seniors show their heart to the end

BALTIMORE -- As the time expired in last night's overtime loss to Alabama and the careers of Penn's five seniors, Crimson Tide coach David Hobbs walked up to Jerome Allen and told the Penn guard how much respect he had for him. Allen, who has been the Quakers' leader for three seasons, had nearly led Penn to victory one final time. "You're just a heck of a player and I have a lot of respect for you," Hobbs told Allen. "You guys gave it everything you had. You came up a little short. Look at the good things you've done over the last three years, not what happened tonight." The dynamic backcourt tandem of Allen, who finished with a team-high 30 points, and Matt Maloney, who scored 23, nearly helped Penn pull off the impossible. Allen's three-pointer, steal and second trey all in a 13-second span late in overtime pulled the Quakers to within three points after they had trailed by as many as 11 earlier in the extra session. Allen had Penn fans believing in the impossible until Alabama guard Bryan Passink hit the second of two free throws at the other end with 14 seconds left to seal the Tide's 91-85 victory. As the Penn players sat in the locker room contemplating the end of their collegiate careers, the near-win was of little consolation for a team that had much grander expectations. Thirty minutes after the final buzzer, the finality had not yet sunk in for the seniors -- Allen, Scott Kegler, Eric Moore, Shawn Trice and Maloney, who transferred from Vanderbilt and played three seasons with the Quakers. Penn is also losing assistant coach Fran O'Hanlon, who will be introduced as the new Lafayette coach Monday. In the locker room, Quakers assistant coach Gil Jackson walked up to Trice and gave him a hug. There were a lot of hugs and congratulations going on in the locker room. Trice said he was still in "total shock." "We had chances to win the game," he said. "It still really hasn't hit me." Even the usually reserved Dunphy said he was struggling during the postgame press conference. It is not often any program has this caliber of athletes graduating together. "I won't have the pleasure of their company every day -- the five seniors who have made my life fantastic over the past four years in four cases and three in the other," Dunphy said. "It's a wonderful group of people who gave great effort throughout their careers. What a fantastic experience to be around these kids. I feel very fortunate to have had that pleasure." Moore said the fact his collegiate career is over may hit him Monday. Both he and Maloney said they wish they could return to practice after the weekend. "I actually want to go to practice Monday," Moore said. "All those guys, we've been together so long and now it's come to an end. It's hard what to think. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. "Everyone in here is pretty positive, saying how much we accomplished, but that's not going to mean anything to us right now. Definitely I'm going to have good memories. But I'm also going to think that at the end we could have done a little more than we did. We did accomplish a lot. But when I came here I expected to accomplish a lot." "Penn's a very good basketball team," Hobbs said later. "They're very well coached. They know how to win. They're senior laden. Anytime you win 14 league games, half of them on the road, for three straight years, with basically the same guys, you know how to win." That respect is a tribute to these Quakers -- particularly to Allen, whose commitment to Penn over Temple and Massachusetts was the impetus for all this success. "I've seen so much. I was exposed to so many things because of this university," Allen said. "I just tried to return the favor with my play on the court. Sometimes you come up short. Sometimes you don't. I'm just fortunate that I've been able to be around a great coaching staff and 13 other guys." The Penn basketball program was clearly the most fortunate of all.

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