When was the last time you heard of a Penn athlete who achieved national celebrity status? For most current Penn students, the answer to this question is probably “never.” This is not necessarily a problem of student apathy towards Penn athletics, however, but rather a reflection of Penn’s priorities as a university.

This season, the two schools will tip off for the 231st and 232nd time in the historic matchup on dates that are inconvenient for the majority of Penn’s student body. But that is this year. It absolutely shouldn’t become a trend, especially if you want students to be engaged with the best of Penn traditions.

Now that it is about to wrap up, what can we say about Grace Calhoun’s first semester as Penn’s athletic director? One thing is for sure: is is moving in the right direction toward addressing student apathy.

No matter what Penn basketball accomplishes -- or doesn't accomplish -- this year, every single narrative surrounding the program will tie into the degree of proverbial heat underneath the chair of a certain coach in his fifth full season.

But say what you want about the lack of titles — Penn Athletics has plenty to learn from and build off of the fall that was.

It seems that there are four constants in the world today (to borrow a frequently posted tweet from CBS college basketball insider Jon Rothstein): Death.

Following the Quakers’ 83-77 loss to Lafayette Saturday night, Penn basketball coach Jerome Allen said the 2013-14 edition of the Quakers are sorting out who they are. 

The way Penn football celebrated at midfield after defeating Cornell, giving retiring coach Al Bagnoli a ceremonial Gatorade shower, you’d almost have thought the Quakers somehow managed to capture a 10th Ivy title for their leader on some sort of technicality.

Against a more experienced and talented Lafayette squad that was hot from the start, Penn made an impressive comeback effort that put its full potential on display despite ultimately falling short, 83-77.

Fans can hate on Nelson-Henry and Louis for their lack of consistency all they want but at the end of the day, they are what keeps Penn from having to go to a frontcourt of only freshmen with sophomore forward Dylan Jones out for the game in street clothes.

The one constant between both Penn men's and women's basketball coming out of the weekend are the growing pains that come with young squads.

If Saturday’s season opener against Delaware State was only 35 minutes long, the conversation about Penn men’s basketball would probably be different.

It sure would have been nice to send off the program’s winningest coach with another victory in his final game at Franklin Field, but Penn football showed a lot to be proud of in its loss to Harvard.

Normally, a 45-point blowout is cause for major concern. But this isn’t most matchups, and as coach Mike McLaughlin and the rest of the team knew going in, this would have to be a game to build off of. 

Although this will also be his last campaign on the Quakers’ sideline, Bagnoli made it perfectly clear before the year started that he never wanted his impending retirement to overshadow what his players did on the field.

Understandably, the team wants to stress the process and not the results this year. That makes perfect sense with a young roster that was projected to finish seventh in the Ancient Eight in the Ivy preseason poll. But there will need to be results this year alongside the all-important process.

Everyone reading this next sentence will hate me but I will say it anyway: When Al Bagnoli announced in April that he would retire after the 2014 season, I immediately thought about Derek Jeter.