Penn and 'Bama set for showdown

7:40 tipoff at Baltimore Arena BALTIMORE -- Jerome Allen met Jason Caffey in California during the Goodwill Games tryouts last summer. They meet again tonight when one player's collegiate career comes to a close. The Penn men's basketball team faces No. 20 Alabama in the first round of the NCAA Tournament here at Baltimore Arena tonight at 7:40 (CBS, WXPN-FM 88.5, WGMP-AM 1210). Five seniors, including Allen, take the floor for the Quakers looking to extend their careers to Saturday, when they would face the Drexel-Oklahoma State winner. The fifth-seeded Crimson Tide (22-9) finished the regular season in third place in the Southeastern Conference's Western Division and lost in the SEC Tournament semifinals to Arkansas, 69-58. Penn (22-5), the No. 12 seed, earned its third straight berth and has won 43 straight Ivy League games. Both teams advanced to the second round of last year's Tourney before suffering defeats. The Quakers posted a 90-80 win over Nebraska in Uniondale, N.Y., in the first round. The Tide topped Providence, 76-70, in Lexington, Ky. Tonight, Penn will have the burden of trying to contain the Crimson Tide front line, which is not tall but is very aggressive. At 6-foot-9, sophomore center Antonio McDyess (12.8 points per game, 9.7 rpg) -- who Allen also met at the Goodwill Games tryouts -- is the tallest up front. He is joined by a couple of powerful forwards, Jamal Faulkner (12.6 ppg, 5.6 rpg) and Caffey (12.2 ppg, 8.1 rpg). "Jason [Caffey] would get it at the defensive end and come down coast to coast and basically owned the inside," Allen said. "He's just a strong player." But Alabama is a team, and Penn cannot concentrate on one player. The top four scorers all average 12 ppg. "We don't have any real big egos," Tide coach David Hobbs said. "We have guys that play together. It doesn't really matter who scores. I think that does help us in that if one guy's not on his game on a given night, we've got some other possibilities to go to." Penn coach Fran Dunphy expressed concern about Alabama's defense last night before the Quakers' practice. The Crimson Tide led the SEC with 6.1 blocks per game and held opponents to only a 37.4 percent shooting average from the field. The Tide also outrebounds its opponents regularly. "We try to do a good job of getting back and cutting off the easy baskets. And we don't let people get run-out baskets on us," Hobbs said. "Some of that we do with our athleticism, some of that we do with our system on defense, which is really a team-oriented kind of thing where we have a lot of help in there. The other thing is we try to not let the other team get real good looks at the basket. We try to contest every shot." "They pose great challenges to us. We're going to have to play an excellent basketball game in order to win," Dunphy said. "Hopefully we'll get our share of good looks at the basket, but you see these kinds of percentages that they hold their opponents to. Those same good looks that you think you're getting all of a sudden get closed down because of their speed and quickness to the ball. We're going to have to really pay attention." Shot blocking and rebounding are things to which the Alabama frontcourt has become accustomed. "For us to be successful in our league and whoever else we're playing against, we realize we have to pressure the ball and contest a lot of shots and just really focus on defense," Caffey said. Alabama does have good guard play as well, although it goes somewhat unnoticed because of the powerful frontcourt. "I feel like our guards are as good as any guards in the country," Tide senior guard Artie Griffin said. "But when you have an advantage like with Jason [Caffey] and Antonio [McDyess], you have to be crazy not to give them the ball and let them do what they can." Hobbs said his team will be ready for the Quakers. While in the past teams may have underestimated the Ivy League's representative in the Tournament, Penn's victory in last year's NCAAs over the Cornhuskers and wins at Michigan and St. John's this season have underscored the Quakers' ability and given them credibility. "It's not hard to get ready for Penn because they have given you so many examples of what they can do," Hobbs said. Meanwhile, Dunphy said he did think yesterday morning while reading the paper what it would be like once the Quakers had lost and the seniors' stellar collegiate careers were over. "What struck me this morning is pretty soon, and I hope its a number of games into the Tournament, that these guys are no longer going to be together as players," Dunphy said. "That's disappointing in that I won't have a chance to coach them anymore."

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.