City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
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Technically speaking, Temple was in the same place the day after selection Sunday last year.

The Owls were on their practice court getting ready for a game later in the week this Monday, just as they were 52 weeks earlier. But the mood was far from the same.

A year ago, Temple was prepping to host the first round of the NIT after being left out of the NCAA Tournament field – something the team felt like was a snub. Monday, the Owls were getting ready to take on seventh-seeded Iowa in the Big Dance.

“Guys were a little down,” senior Jaylen Bond said of the mood last year. “We got back on the court and used not making it as motivation, but this is a lot different.”

As the mood is different, so too is the preparation for the Owls, who quite literally face a tall task against the Hawkeyes.

Temple will have to slow down a tall and talented Hawkeye frontcourt, which is led by unanimous All-Big Ten first-team pick in Jared Uthoff. Uthoff averages 18.9 points and 6.4 rebounds per game to go with shooting percentages of 45.2 from the field, 39.2 on 3-pointers and 81.9 from the foul line.

Also helping Iowa offensively is 6-foot-6 junior guard Peter Jok, who scored 16.2 points per game and hits 41.2 percent of his threes. The Hawkeyes get 6.3 assists per game from Mike Gesell, a senior guard, and 7-foot-1 big man Adam Woodbury averages 7.7 points and 8.5 rebounds per game.

“I think they’re balanced. A kid like Jok is a terrific jump shooter. Uthoff is a complete player,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “(Assistant coach Aaron McKie) was talking about him today, mentioning Drik Nowitzki in the same breath, and that’s the kind of game this kid plays. He steps outside and can make shots. He knows how to play, he’s very intelligent, gets to the rim, he’s a good rebounder and foul line a lot.”

Iowa also has more NCAA Tournament experience than the Owls. The Hawkeyes were a No. 7 seed in the South region last season, topping No. 10 Davidson before falling to No. 2 Gonzaga. And this is the third consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament for Iowa, which was ranked as high as third in this season’s AP poll.

While Dunphy has plenty of NCAA Tournament experience on the sidelines, the Owls don’t have much on the court. Bond played in the tournament when he was a freshman at Texas four years ago, and he’s the only player with NCAA Tournament minutes on Temple’s roster.

Seniors like Quenton DeCosey and Daniel Dingle were on the bench when the Owls last made it to the Big Dance – 2013 as a No. 9 seed – but none of them got minutes. Still, Dunphy doesn’t think the experience, or lack thereof, will have much of an impact after the ball is tipped on Friday afternoon.

“Let’s say Devin Coleman rises up for a jumper, a wide-open jumper at 22 feet, does he say ‘Oh I don’t have any experience, I don’t know if this is going to go in,’ ” Dunphy said. “We’re just playing basketball, that’s what we have to do.”

Also on the list of things Dunphy doesn’t think will matter on Friday afternoon is Iowa’s late-season slide.

After starting the season 19-4 and 10-1 in the Big Ten, the Hawkeyes hit a rough patch in mid-February. Iowa enters the NCAA Tournament having lost six of its last eight games, including losses to both Illinois and Penn State, who finished in the bottom half of the Big Ten. But Dunphy will be quick to point out the Hawkeyes’ 4-0 performance against Michigan State and Purdue this season and other factors that had them in the AP top 5 for four weeks this season.

“They have a complete team and a good bench,” Dunphy said. “They ran into a little bit of a snag over the course of the latter part of the year, but I don’t think that is going to matter one bit on Friday.”