Fran Dunphy

PENN HADN'T played a postseason game in 5 years. The last time it hosted one was 1978, in an NCAA preliminary round against St. Bonaventure. And the last time the Quakers advanced was 1994, when Fran Dunphy's team with current coach Jerome Allen knocked off Nebraska in the four-letter tournament before losing to a third-seeded Florida bunch would reach the Final Four. Last night at the Palestra a Quaker squad that had somehow managed to win seven straight down the stretch, including a one-pointer at Harvard to almost force an Ivy League playoff, got a chance to extend the season.

WHAT YOU have to remember about the at-large selections is that 10 people on the selection committee punch their preferences into computer terminals. There is major discussion, but, in the end, it is those 10 human beings, with individual preferences on what matters, who rank the teams. Those rankings are eventually averaged and the final at-large teams are selected. There is no conspiracy. The votes are the votes. Tournament committee chairman Jeff Hathaway kept talking about nonconference strength of schedule.

With Temple carrying the local banner and Drexel's omission getting plenty of Selection Sunday debate, here are 20 questions and answers about this year's NCAA tournament.   1. Drexel didn't make it. But how did this Selection Committee treat the Dragons? Like gum on their feet. Officially, 27-6 Drexel was one of four teams left outside the field with Oral Roberts, Miami and Nevada. We wrote all along that the committee was going to have to make a philosophical decision - the team or the profile.

Temple is the No. 5 seed in the Midwest Regional for the NCAA tournament. The 21st-ranked Owls (24-6) will play in a second-round game in Nashville, Tenn. on Friday. They will play the winner of the first-round game between California and South Florida, the winner emerging as a 12th seed. This is Temple's fifth consecutive NCAA tournament appearance. Last season, the Owls posted their first victory in four tourney appearances by defeating Penn State, 66-64, in a second-round West Regional game.

AROUND THE CITY PLAYING FOR BANNER FIRST Penn will play for an Ivy League championship tomorrow at Princeton. In the Ivy, co-champions are considered champions. If the Quakers win, they will then play Harvard on Saturday at a neutral site for the Ivy's automatic NCAA bid. After crushing Yale at the Palestra, 68-47, Penn (19-11, 11-2 Ivy) needs a win tomorrow to tie Harvard (26-4, 12-2 Ivy). Penn coach Jerome Allen said: "It was the best 20 minutes of team defense we played all year long.

NEW YORK - Fran Dunphy admits that Temple had some interesting circumstances this season. "You have to deal with Scootie [Randall] not being with us," the Owls coach said of his team missing its inspirational leader the entire season with a left knee injury. "You have to deal with Mike [Eric] having not played in 13 games" with a fractured right kneecap. "So they've come together and really done a great job if you look at the big picture. " And that might be an understatement.

TEMPLE'S BASKETBALL team doesn't go down back-to-back. Or, at least it hadn't in exactly 3 years and a day. So you didn't really think this season's Senior Night at the Liacouras Center, where the Owls have dropped one in the last 2 1/2 seasons, was going to be any different? Well, almost. The 23rd-ranked Owls, who had lost by 10 on Saturday at Saint Joseph's to end their 11-game winning streak, needed overtime for the second time in three games to finally get past Massachusetts, 90-88.

LOCAL HOOPS legend Alonzo Lewis, who died Tuesday night after being hit by a car, still owes old friend John Chaney milk from the days they would bet bottles of it on one-on-one pickup games at the Palestra. "I wanted to play for sodas; he wanted to play for milk. He was a health nut, you know, always believed in being conditioned," Chaney, the longtime Temple coach, who played with Lewis for nearly a decade in the old Eastern League, recalled fondly last night. Just as the former teammates would tease each other about who was the better player whenever they met, Chaney joked through his sadness last night: "I would say, after playing him on the court for so many years, that he still owes me some milk, 'cause I won. " Lewis, 77, a star at La Salle University, was the third-winningest coach in Chester High School's history, with a 237-67 record from 1985 to 1995, including the state championship in '89. He later coached at Cheyney University.

Penn basketball coach Jerome Allen was one of his school's all-time greats as a Quakers guard, and he played for some fine and renowned coaches at Episcopal Academy and at Penn. He's also the first Big Five head coach in more than four decades to have played in the NBA, since Tom Gola coached La Salle from 1968 through 1970. But the lines on Allen's resumé that often get the least attention probably should be in the boldest print. Allen talks about how he was heavily influenced by Dan Dougherty at Episcopal and Fran Dunphy at Penn, and by Larry Brown while playing most of a season with the Indiana Pacers.