One year after the Glen Miller firing

Today Penn basketball celebrates (er...) an anniversary. Exactly one year ago, Director of Athletics Steve Bilsky sent head coach of men's basketball Glen Miller packing, and elevated the new guy — the new, old guy — Jerome Allen, who was then the volunteer assistant coach, to the status of interim head man.

The story has been well told over the last year: how Miller took over a championship team in 2006, led the Quakers to another Ivy title in 2007, and then the Quakers faithful watched as the team sunk to the status of has-been over the last two seasons — capped with an 0-10 run to start 2009-10 and punctuated by Miller's firing seven games into the worst start in program history.

The story of Allen's rise to the top of the program that he once ran as point guard has been similarly chronicled: How he and his Quakers finally got their first win over winter break at Maryland-Baltimore County; how three days earlier they suffered the program's worst ever defeat, 114-55, at the hands of eventual-national champion Duke; how Penn finished 5-9 in the Ivy League, tied for fifth with the likes of Columbia and Brown and just above the bottom dwelling Dartmouth Big Green; how the stumbling Quakers toppled No. 22 ranked Cornell at the Palestra, storming the court as the Big Red were whisked out of the national spotlight, for a few weeks at least; and how Allen was named head coach in March.

And so a year later much has changed. Glen Miller landed himself a job Connecticut's director of basketball administration — "It is what it is,” Miller told the New Haven Register over the summer. “It’s a step backward, the first time I’ve had to experience a step back like this, but I’m just very excited to get this opportunity."

Back at Penn, there's a different attitude at the Cathedral of college basketball. Penn surely has a chip on its collective shoulder, coming out of the worst season in program history, but there's a refreshing attitude of winning, or at least wanting to win. This isn't the Ivy frontrunner that alumni expect the team to be on a perennial basis, but it appears to be heading back in that direction.

In eight games so far this season, the Quakers (4-4) have already downed three teams (Davidson, Lafayette, UMBC) that had roles in the 0-10 start to last year, and they'll get a chance at another, Delaware, next week. They hung tough with a No. 12 Villanova team that looked capable of doing serious damage (though, as we learned afterward, there's no such thing as a moral victory for Allen). Team defense, a focus of Allen's, has improved greatly. But there are still problems, highlighted by Penn's second-half meltdown against Manhattan, where the Quakers gave up 17-straight points to end the game and lose it.

Miller's last full recruiting class is a non-entity, struck from the record, after sophomores Sean Mullan and Tommy Eggleston were cut from the squad during the preseason. Former classmate Brian Fitzpatrick transferred to Bucknell when the roster ballooned to over 20 players over the summer, much like Carson Sullivan, also a sophomore, who left the team to seek a "better situation," closer to his Charlotte, N.C., home.

The recruiting class of 2014, begun by Miller and held onto by Allen, has so far been an asset if only in one name: Miles Cartwright. The freshman and two-time Ivy Rookie of the Week has exceeded his own expectations, his coaches expectations and almost everyone else's expectations. He's averaging 11.1 points per game — below only captains Jack Eggleston and Zack Rosen — and playing 27.1 minutes per game — more than all of his classmates combined — with the poise, drive and basketball IQ of a player far beyond just his eighth collegiate game.

But a year later, what Allen truly brings back to the program can't be established with statistics or win-loss records. He brings an unrivaled appreciation to be where he is, coaching on the hardwood he ran in the early 90s. He brings an understanding of the program, both a knowledge of its history and a vision for its future. He earns respect from his players, setting an example for how to conduct one's self both on and off the court.

The program is undoubtedly in better hands than it was 366 days ago. But can those hands that once drained basket after basket at the Palestra now guide the team back to prominence? A year is surely too short a time to tell.