Bob Ford: Complex duel unfolds at Palestra

It was a tale of two teams in one city last night - one prosperous, one struggling, one rich in potential, the other poor in results, and a tale with enough familial intermingling to make a Russian novel.

There have been enough Big Five games in the Palestra that perhaps everything that can happen has already happened at least once, but last night's Temple-Penn game tested the theory.

On one bench, you had Temple, the 19th-ranked team in the country, coached by a man who sat at the other end of the gym for nearly two decades and was merely the best coach in a basketball history that stretches back to the gauzy black-and-white photos that used to decorate every wall of the concourse.

On the opposite bench, you had a Penn team that has struggled miserably all season and figures to struggle for the rest of it. The Quakers fired their coach last month and replaced him with a former star whose greatest days came under the direction of that coach at the other end of the building, a relationship in which each man helped make the other what he is today.

The emotions were as predictable as the game was not. Everything that had taken place previously this season - Temple's quick rise to national rankings, Penn's precipitous fall to the bottom of the Ivy League - didn't matter as much when the game began.

"They played harder than us," said Temple coach Fran Dunphy. "They wanted it more than we did. We knew we had to have it, but their purpose was greater than ours. Their will was greater than ours."

In the end, however, Temple had the higher point total, which is still the way these things are judged. The 60-45 loss for Penn doesn't look as competitive as the game actually turned out to be. It was just another loss in a season that has seen too many, but, then again, it wasn't.

"I thought we had a winnable game tonight," Penn guard Zack Rosen said. "We struggled to put the ball in the hoop down the stretch, but we scrapped and played hard collectively."

At some point, that will pay off for Jerome Allen, the former star who has taken over a team that couldn't dream of dominating the Ivy League the way his teams did under Dunphy.

"I'm a big believer in buying into the process," Allen said. "Even if it's a losing effort, if you're going in the right direction, then I'm going to say the glass is half-full."

Filling the glass will be as difficult as filling the basket last night, but it was a step out of the wilderness. Temple's defense represents a tough challenge for any team. The Owls came in holding opponents to 37 percent shooting, and that's just about the number they allowed Penn as well.

Every Quakers basket had to be earned, every possession was ugly before it became beautiful, and every Penn player seemed to want this game as much for the new coach as for himself. For a couple of moments, it did seem possible.

Despite opening the second half going 0 for 9 from the field with three turnovers, falling behind by 15 points in the process, Penn didn't fold. In fact, the Quakers scored on their next six possessions, muscling the ball inside for the first five of those baskets before a Justin Reilly three-point shot cut the lead to just five points, 45-40.

The Penn fans, who have either been silent or dressed as empty benches for much of this season, came to life and the total crowd of 6,353 made the Palestra sound as if it was one of those steamy nights in which the stands are crammed to the corners.

"I was happy for our guys to come home for a decent crowd and to have the opportunity to play a Big Five game. Those are always special," Allen said. "And the records and the results go out the window in the Big Five."

This wasn't going to be one of those nights, however. Basketball order was restored when Temple's defense tightened again, forcing Penn into turnovers, and Ryan Brooks and Juan Fernandez led the Owls to the wire. The Quakers scored just five points in the final 8 minutes, 57 seconds of the game and that was that.

It would diminish Penn's effort to say Temple played poorly. The Owls haven't yet developed enough offensive rhythm to make even their wins look picturesque. Down the road, Temple is going to run into one of these games against a lesser team and not come smoothly out the other side. Last night, the Owls ran into a team that wanted to win but is still learning how.

"I think Jerome's making a difference," Dunphy said. "They're starting to buy into playing his way."

Allen's way is Dunphy's way. It has worked for a lot of years and maybe it will work again for the Quakers. Even on a night when two teams at opposite ends of the building and at opposite ends of the Division I world played a game that ended up the way you might expect, there was something there to see. Maybe a beginning.

"I saw a lot of bright spots," said Allen, who has seen them in this old gym before.