Allen to face ‘daddy’

Fans of Penn basketball couldn’t concoct a more storybook plot for Jerome Allen’s first home game as interim head coach of his former team.

It’s the coach against the player. It’s the student against the teacher. It’s two legends of Penn hoops lore back in action at the Cathedral of College Basketball for a classic Big 5 matchup.

Tonight, when the Red and Blue take on No. 19 Temple, Allen will face former Penn coach Fran Dunphy, the man who brought him to Penn 19 years ago and helped him become one of the greatest players in Quakers’ history.

“I really look at him as my father, as my mentor, as someone I look up to greatly,” Allen said of Dunphy. “He’s done so much for me just in terms of, putting basketball aside, just making me a productive citizen in this society.”

Although his reunion with Dunphy on the Palestra hardwood will likely fill the stands and revive some of the Big 5 magic that has dissipated since Dunphy left for Temple, both coaches are doing their best to focus on the game.

“I’d be lying to you if I said that it wasn’t a big deal,” Allen admitted, “but it’s really about the Penn Quakers versus the Temple Owls.”

Dunphy, likewise, acknowledges the effects that the drama of facing Allen will cause him, but is trying to deflect the attention onto the game itself.

“I can’t say I’m looking forward to it to be honest … I’m nervous about playing Penn at this point and Jerome being the head coach,” he said.

“[But] it’s just something you deal with,” Dunphy added. “For the most part, once the ball gets tossed in the air you’ll just be coaching your guys and try not to think about who’s on the other bench.”

Allen didn’t immediately realize his home debut would feature such a compelling matchup.

“When I first got the job, this was the furthest thing from my mind,” he said, adding that he was just focused on his first game against Davidson.

But once pointed out to him, “it was like, this is kind of storybook,” he said. “I mean, who wouldn’t wanna beat daddy?”

“It’s not so much in the sense that I took everything that he taught me and I took it to another level,” Allen continued. “It’s just, I have two sons, and I know my oldest can’t wait for the day that we play one-on-one in the driveway and he actually wins.”

And just like his 14-year-old son, Allen will have a hard time ‘beating daddy.’

Dunphy’s nationally ranked Owls (13-3, 2-0 Big 5) have already defeated a Villanova squad that trounced the Quakers by 38 points at the Palestra.

Entering tonight’s contest, Penn (1-10, 0-1 Big 5) hopes to carry the momentum of its first win of the season. The Quakers could hang tough if they come close to replicating the 54 percent three-point shooting from the Jan. 6 win over Maryland-Baltimore County.

And if there’s one thing Dunphy guarantees he’ll see from an Allen-coached Penn team, it’s competitiveness.

“He was as good a competitor as I’ve ever coached,” Dunphy said. “We’re just going to try and play the best we can knowing full well that Penn is going to come after us and be as competitive as any team we’ve played so far this year.”

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