PHILADELPHIA-- Fran Dunphy has been around the Philadelphia college basketball scene his entire life.
As a kid growing up in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, he was a CYO three-sport prodigy who used to be a regular at the fabled Palestra, watching Temple, Saint Joseph's, Villanova, Penn and La Salle play in Big 5 doubleheaders every Wednesday and Saturday night. He was a local high school star at Malvern Prep, a member of the 1969 LaSalle team that had four pros and was ranked second in the country. Then, he went on to become the only man to coach two different Division I schools in the city – first Penn and, for the last 10 years, Temple.
Philly has always been known as a cradle for college basketball coaches. Kenny Loeffler, who coached La Salle to an NCAA championship during the Tom Gola era in 1954, Jack Ramsay of Saint Joseph's, both Harry Litwack and John Chaney of Temple and Chuck Daly, who coached at Penn before going to the NBA, are all in the Naismith Hall of Fame, along with Gola, who coached at his alma mater and was inducted as a player. Rollie Massimino of Villanova, who led the Wildcats to the1985 NCAA title, is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
“College basketball has always been part of the fabric in this city,” Dunphy said. “It’s an honor to coach here.”
Dunphy's record speaks for itself.
After Temple defeated Cincinnati, 67-65, in double overtime in an excellent American Athletic Conference game at the Liacouras Center, Dunphy had 512 career victories and was just five victories away from surpassing the legendary Chaney as the all-time winningest coach in the history of Big 5 basketball.
Dunphy is one of five coaches to win at least 200 games at two programs while taking both schools to six or more NCAA tournaments.
The 67-year-old Dunphy coached Penn for 17 years from 1989 through 2006, changing the balance of power in an Ivy League that was once the exclusive domain of Princeton. Dunphy was 310-161 and his Quaker teams won an unprecedented 48 straight Ivy League games and four league titles between 1992 and 1996, when future NBA players Jerome Allen and Matt Maloney were in school. His 1994 team was 25-3 and was No. 25 in the coaches' poll, the Quakers’ first national ranking since the 1979 season. Dunphy won six Ivy titles in his final eight seasons at Penn.
Then, in 2006, he went uptown to North Philadelphia to become the successor to Chaney, an icon at Temple who had coached the Owls to a No. 1 national ranking in 1988 and six NCAA Elite Eights.
“Before I took the job, I phoned coach Chaney to ask for his approval,” Dunphy said. “I knew what he had done for the school and I wasn't about to take the job until he was okay with it.”
Dunphy received a papal blessing of sorts and began to build his new empire on North Broad Street. He has coached the Owls to 202 wins and six NCAA tournaments, three conference titles and a trip to the 2015 NIT semifinals in nine years. Temple won 26 games last year and there are still questions on this campus why the NCAA selection committee left them out of the dance last season.
This year was supposed to be somewhat of a rebuilding season for the Owls. But Temple (9-7), which challenged itself with a nonconference schedule that has included games against North Carolina, Butler, Utah, Wisconsin and Saint Joseph’s thus far, is starting to come on again. The Owls have won four of their first six games in the competitive American Athletic Conference, including a series sweep against Cincinnati and a gritty road win against UConn. Three of the Owls’ last four conference games have been two-point affairs, and Temple has come away with hard-fought wins in two of those three contests.
The American is a wide open basketball conference. SMU is currently the only team in the country that is still undefeated. The talented Mustangs (18-0), coached by Hall of Famer Larry Brown, who has no shortage of Philadelphia ties himself, are ranked No. 8 in the country. There is enormous parity among the next seven teams -- Houston, Memphis, UCF, Temple, Tulsa, Connecticut and Cincinnati.
Temple found that out last Wednesday during a 67-65 loss at Memphis in a game that was decided on a last second foul after Temple let an 11 point lead slip away.
“We had to get a game back,” said Temple senior guard Quinton DeCosey, following the double-OT win against Cincinnati. “We let one get away in Memphis. This was a had-to-get win and we did a good job getting it.”
At this point, it is hard to tell how many bids this league will get or who will get them.
While SMU is squarely focused on making a statement in the regular season, Cincinnati was considered the conference favorite when league play began. But Temple has shaken up the dynamics in the standings with some unexpected victories and the Owls have put themselves once again in the mix for an NCAA bid.
Temple's second win over the Bearcats ended in dramatic fashion when six-foot-eight forward Jaylen Bond, playing against a much bigger front line, scored the gamewinner on a putback of a missed 3-point shot by Obi Enechionyia with 15.8 seconds to play.
“Obi shot, and as soon as I saw he put the shot up I just crashed the glass as best as I could and got the rebound and put it back easy,” said Bond, who finished with nine points and 12 rebounds, including nine offensive boards.
Temple made it hard on itself by making just 8 of 18 free throws. Dunphy is an accomplished game day coach but he needed a miracle 3 by Devin Coleman to stay in the game. Temple trailed 65-62 with 1:31 left in the second overtime when Coleman drained a crucial 3-pointer from about 25 feet out that tied the game at 65.
“I just knew I had to get a shot up,” Coleman said. “I didn't even look at the shot clock. I was right on the sideline where Coach [Fran] Dunphy was and I heard him say, 'Got to go.'“
The difference between winning and losing in this league is fragile.
“Every game is a new challenge,” Dunphy said. “A play here, a play there - there are a lot of good coaches in this league. But we talk about the fact that we can be champions of the league and win our conference tournament,”