COLUMN: NBA is next for Penn guards

From Nicholas Hut's "A Front Row View," Fall '95 He bombed. His stat line read like this: 20 minutes, 0 for 5 from the floor, 1 assist, 6 turnovers, 0 points. Two nights before Allen's debacle, former backcourt mate Matt Maloney, also in Seattle, gave a performance that had to turn a few heads. Sure, the setting was some goofy "buzzer beater" competition that involved dribbling around a few obstacles and draining a long-distance shot. But Maloney's attempt was successful, and all seven other competitors, including Damon Stoudamire, Shawn Respert and Lawrence Moten, cannot say the same. And Maloney did it in prime time on ESPN for the whole nation to see. And so two collegiate careers came to a close once and for all. For the past three years Allen and Maloney have been called one of the best backcourts in the nation, perhaps the best ever to grace the Ivy League. But 1994-95 has witnessed something of a transformation between these two prime-time players. Last weekend was only the latest example. Before, when you talked about Penn's top player, Allen was always No. 1 and Maloney was 1a. Allen won the Player of the Year awards and always carried the team when no one else was willing to step up and do it. In 1993-94, he lit up Ohio State, St. Joseph's, Temple and Florida, keeping the Quakers in games when they were not expected to win. While Allen shined last season, Maloney struggled a bit. He was the second-best guard in the Ivies, but he often just did not display the consistent brilliance you expected. Rightly or wrongly, his games against Temple and Florida last year have lived in infamy. If only he would have hit one shot to break his slide, maybe Penn could have found a way to win. What was great about Maloney, though, was he never let his shooting slumps get him down. He knew he was as good a shooter as there was around, so why let mere misses get him down? Whether he was 5 for 21 against Temple last season or 13 for 21 this year at Brown, he was going to keep shooting. The confidence never left him. And this season, neither did his shooting touch. He scored 36 in the aforementioned Brown game and 34, along with an Ivy League record 10 three-pointers, against Harvard. His shooting was the main reason Penn could have won versus Temple and 'Nova. When it was over, Maloney had garnered Ivy Player of the Year honors. Now a career in the NBA is no longer a pipe dream, but an actual possibility. Time and time again he's shown he can compete with the big boys. Allen didn't appear to have as spectacular a season as the uneducated observer might have hoped. His shooting was inconsistent. His slashing moves to the basket seemed erratic and out-of-control at times. He too often didn't look to take over games the way his team may have needed him to. Fortunately, uneducated observers aren't the observers that matter. Jerome did have nearly six assists per game this season, an outstanding figure. He was a unanimous first-team all-Ivy selection, and against Alabama, he put the team on his shoulders the way he had rarely done this season. No, he didn't help his draft status with his performance in Seattle. But he should still get drafted. As coach Fran Dunphy once said, he probably won't lead his NBA squad in scoring, but he will help it win. Isn't that the bottom line? Isn't that what he's done for three years at Penn, even if his stats haven't jumped out at you sometimes this season? The intangibles are the best part of Allen's game -- the ability to make every teammate better; the court vision; the physical man-to-man defense; and most of all, the leadership. What this season has done, then, is make it not all that unlikely that not one but two Penn alums will be playing pro basketball next season. After all they have done for this university, both Maloney and Allen deserve all the fame and riches they can get. Nicholas Hut is a College junior from Chevy Chase, Md., and Sports Editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.