Temple’s courting of Fran Dunphy is getting all the atttention these days, but Penn isn’t the only Ivy whose coaching situation has been in the news lately. A move across town by Dunphy could start a domino effect with a couple of other Ivy school potentially involved. Meanwhile, one coach in the league has thrown his hat into the ring for at least one other job, another coach’s job security was assured for the time being, and a third Ivy coach turned down an opportunity elsewhere to stay put.

The rumor mill has been working overtime lately with the Temple coaching search and the domino effect that could result from that hire. With newspapers disagreeing about what has or will take place as far as meetings and interviews, it’s tough to know what to believe. Here’s a common sense look at where things stand and where they’re headed.

In a piece titled “Save the Tigers!” that appeared last week on Slate, former Daily Princetonian Editor-in-Chief and current editor of The New Republic Online Richard Just discusses race and Princeton basketball. While there is undoubtedly a racial element to The Legend of Princeton Basketball, Just misplaces the blame for this, targeting in part the program and its fans.

A poor couple of minutes late in Friday’s game may have cost Penn a chance at one of the greatest upsets in NCAA Tournament history, but the Quakers can take solace in the fact they made one of the top teams in the nation sweat through a First Round game in its back yard. Now the Quakers’ takeaway from the 2005-06 season won’t be the poor second half of the Ivy season, but rather the near misses against Texas and Villanova — the latter without Steve Danley — and the respectable showing at Duke. Penn will go into next season knowing it can compete with the best in the land.

Postgame audio: Fran Dunphy | Ibby Jaaber | Eric Osmundson | Texas
(courtesy of the Daily Pennsylvanian)

Key sequence: Brian Grandieri grabbed Ibby Jaaber’s missed fastbreak layup and laid it in to bring Penn to within one at 41-40 with 6:38 left. P.J. Tucker bricked a jumper at the other end and Steve Danley grabbed the rebound for Penn. But with Texas in disarray after Penn had scored on four of its last five possessions while the Longhorns were coming off three straight fruitless possessions, Fran Dunphy called an ill-advised timeout. The break gave the Longhorns an opportunity to regroup, and — more critically — allowed Rick Barnes to re-insert Daniel Gibson, who had been on the bench with four fouls. Out of the timeout, the Quakers settled for a moving three-point attempt from Eric Osmundson with the shotclock running low, then Gibson made his presence felt with a driving shot that found its way into the bottom of the net. After Mark Zoller badly missed a spinning fadeaway jumper in the lane, Gibson again slipped inside for a layup to make it a five-point game with 4:37 left. Zoller missed 17-foot jumper, and Gibson found LaMarcus Aldridge down low, and the big man was fouled, hitting both free throws to make it a 47-40 game with just 3:49 left.