Editor's Note: Dick Weiss, a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, has covered college sports in Philadelphia and New York for more than 40 years. He will be providing regular commentary for the American Athletic Conference during the 2014-15 season.
A combination of veteran players, quickly-developing rookies, talented transfers and one of the best coaches in the country has Temple primed for a return to postseason play
by Dick Weiss
PHILADELPHIA-- It is still too early to project how many American Athletic Conference teams will earn invitations to the NCAA tournament.
SMU (21 RPI), Cincinnati (31) and Tulsa (42), which is 9-0 in league play, appear to be playing the best basketball at this point and all three deserve spots in the 68-team bracket.
Now, Temple is beginning to look like a legitimate fourth candidate for a bid. The Owls, who temporarily disappeared from the dance card last year during an uncharacteristic 9-22 season, are 16-7 and 7-3 in league play and have a 43 RPI following a 61-48 win at USF Wednesday. They have the biggest signature win of any team in the conference -- a 77-52 victory over Kansas at the Wells Fargo Center-- and have won 10 of their last 13 games.
“We need to keep winning,” Dunphy said. “We need to win every game. There's no other thought going through our mind. We had those two games against Tulsa and SMU that we had a pretty good chance to win, and we chose not to. There is nothing we can do about that now. We're going to go on the road to play them at the end of February and it will be difficult.
“Once you get into league play, everybody knows you. That's one of the reasons why the scores are low, because every bounce is scouted.”
Dunphy, who grew up in suburban Drexel Hill and played on La Salle's second-ranked team in 1969, has built a reputation as one of the best coaches in the history of the Philadelphia Big 5. He coached Penn to nine Ivy League championships from 1989-90 through 2005-06 before making an unusual switch to another city school. Dunphy has coached Temple back into the national spotlight, leading the Owls to six NCAA bids in eight years with three consecutive Atlantic 10 titles and the No. 12 ranking in the 2010 AP poll.
The Owls have a completely different look than they did at the start of the season, when Dunphy was searching for a new frontcourt after 6-9 forward Anthony Lee transferred to Ohio State and was looking for perimeter shooting threats to replace Dalton Pepper.
Dunphy has fleshed out his frontline with 6-9, 220-pound freshman shot-blocker Obi Enechionyia from the St. James (Md.) School and 6-8, 240-pound junior forward Jaylen Bond-- a local high school star from Plymouth-Whitemarsh, a PIAA Class AAAA Player of the Year who transferred home from Texas. He has already picked up two more transfers who are 3-point threats-- guards Jesse Morgan, a senior from Olney in the Philadelphia Public League who was granted a single semester of eligibility after transferring home from UMass; and guard Devin Coleman, from Friends Central who spent a year at Clemson before coming home and, like Morgan, became eligible Dec. 18.
Temple seems to be at its best when it is fueled by local pride.
Bond, a dynamic rebounder who grabbed 10 boards as the Owls swept the regular season series from Tulane, currently leads the American with just over eight rebounds per game. Enechionyia, a one-time starter who seems more comfortable coming off the bench, finished with 12 points, three blocks and four rebounds in 25 minutes when the Owls needed a boost in their win against Tulane last Saturday. “I think when everybody is tired, I can come off the bench and bring energy,” Enechionyia said.
Dunphy has never had a player like Enechionyia since he has been at Temple who has this type of inside-outside potential. “I think you'd have to go back,” Dunphy said. “I coached a player named Ugonna Onyekwe when I was at Penn who was very similar.”
Onyekwe was a versatile 6-8 forward who was a two-time Ivy Player of the Year in the early 2000s, punctuating his career with a 30 point performance against Georgia Tech and dominant outings against Ivy rival Princeton.
“Obs is a talented guy,” Dunphy said. “He’s going to get better and better. He made some big shots for us. He made a huge 3 away from our basket in the second half. He really did a pretty good job, but he’s getting better each and every game.”
It’s getting easier for Enechionyia, as it should for any freshman.
“I just have to choose the spots,” Enechionyia said. “The right times to be aggressive and the right time to let the guards do their thing. That’s kind of one of the things I had to get used to, but like I said, it’s getting easier every game.”
Enechionyia is still learning how to be less foul-prone. “During the stretch where we did start him, he wasn't always available at the end of games,” said Dunphy. “We need him at the end of games because he adds that spark, that athleticism. He can block a shot. He's pretty mobile. Let's say we have a lead. We can switch with him. He can guard some perimeter guys better than the rest of our bigs, actually.”
Morgan and Coleman both made a huge splash in their first game in a Temple uniform. Morgan hit 4 of 8 from 3-point range an Coleman hit 3 of 6 as the Owls exploded from behind the arch, making 16 of 33 3s -- their most in over 11 years-- to beat Delaware, 82-62, on the road.
Morgan is a huge talent when his shot is falling, but there are times when his perimeter game goes silent-- the way it did when he shot just 1 for 9 against Tulane. The Owls have more resources this year to overcome a bad shooting night by their best long range shooter.
Junior guard Quenton DeCosey, who has scored in double figures 20 of 23 games, leads the team with 13.3 points per game, a shade ahead of guard Will Cummings, who is at 13.2 ppg. This team is still a work in progress offensively. The Owls are shooting less than 40 percent from the field and 31 percent from 3-point range.
“That's what teams are giving us because we don't have a great presence inside,” Dunphy said. “Jaylen has to finish and Obi needs to be more of a presence in the block down low. If defense is giving up jump shots, we have to be a better jump-shooting team. As a team you have to be equal parts pass and run, 50-50. If the defense is going to collapse inside, you have to kick it out, re-post it. But we are who we are.”
The Owls might have been in much better shape for March if Cummings, the Owls' best free throw shooter, hadn't missed most of three losses at the start of the American Athletic Conference season. Cummings injured a muscle in the lower part of his left leg in the first half against Tulsa, then was forced to watch in the second half as the Owls lost an 11 point lead during a 63-56 setback to the Golden Hurricane here Jan. 12. He tried to play the Owls next home game against SMU, but was basically ineffective, scoring just one point as the Mustangs rallied from a double-figure deficit to beat the Owls, 60-55, before a packed house at the Liacouras Center.
Cummings, the Owls' best perimeter defender, is healthy again and it shows. “He stops dribble penetration and sets the tone for our team defensively,” Dunphy said.
What Temple has done best during its current stretch is simply finding ways to win. The Owls scored just 55 points in the win against Tulane, but held the Green Wave to just eight first-half points and were never threatened. One game earlier, the shots were falling, to the tune of 56-percent shooting from 3-point range in an 86-62 win at UCF. Temple beat USF Wednesday as Cummings scored more than half of his game-high 19 points from the free throw line.
College basketball has become a marathon. “The years are long,” Dunphy said. “You start working out in August and you're going to get into some of these games that are unusual. As long as you score more points than the other team in those games, you feel pretty good.”