City of Basketball Love

David Gough (@dg0ugh)
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Fran Dunphy’s seniors had a little bit more playing time than expected at the Liacouras Center on Saturday afternoon.

The final home game for three Temple seniors reached double overtime in a tough battle against Tulane, and they made the most of it, with all three Owls seniors contributing during a 86-76 win.

While Dan Dingle has been a mainstay in the starting lineup this season, Mark Williams and Mike Robbins also got a taste of the starting role as well.

It was the first start of Robbins’ career and he jumpstarted the Owls to a 13-point lead by making his first three shots. It was the Lower Merion graduate’s only seven points of the game, but it got the Liacouras Center rocking five minutes into it.

A pregame Senior Day tradition is what motivated the former-walk on.

“When we were walking out under the basket to shake the coach’s hand, they had my jersey framed along with Dan’s and Mark’s. Just seeing number 22 in the frame, that’s what did it for me,” Robbins said.

It was the 6-foot-4 guard’s 15th appearance in a game this season, though he hadn’t played more than 14 minutes in any of them.

Robbins played 22 minutes on Saturday and while most of it was in regulation, he found himself back on the court for the last two minutes of Temple’s win.

“He did great,” Dunphy said. “To be honest with you, [I’m] not surprised. He wants to be out there and we had him in the game late and he made a pretty big rebound for us. He did a good job.”

Robbins was productive contributing four rebounds and one steal during his time on the court, but his foul trouble likely kept him on the bench for the better part of the second half of the game. It was Williams’ fifth and final foul that helped him get back in.

As Robbins came into the game for the 6-foot-8, 225-pound forward, fans in the Liacouras Center gave a standing ovation to Williams.

He was leaving the home floor for the final time with one of the best games of his career.

The Cleveland, Ohio, native scored a season-high 20 points on 8-of-15 shooting with an additional six rebounds.

He came up big at some of the most important points of the game. As Tulane (5-23, 2-14) held a five point lead with just under two minutes to go in the second half, Williams got an offensive rebound, putting it back up for two points, and made the free throw.

Williams also scored the only two field goals of the first overtime period for Temple (15-15, 6-11).

“I think he can look back at a game like today and say ‘I had a phenomenal impact in a game that we needed to win’ and we did. We found a way to win it,” Dunphy said.

The Owls did need a win on Saturday after losing three straight, the last two being one-possession losses on home court.

After jumping out to a 17-4 lead just five minutes in, they looked like they were ready to take full control of the game and get their sixth conference win.

Tulane went on an 8-0 run right after, however, and the two teams played pretty evenly until halftime as Temple led 35-28.

“We had a chance early in that first half to put some great separation between us and them. We made some foolish mistakes,” Dunphy said. “We started thinking about ourselves a little bit and it cost us a lead. We only led by seven points at the half, but we should’ve had more I thought.”

The Green Wave erased their seven-point deficit in the first nine minutes of the second half taking the lead 43-42.

Their largest lead would reach six with under four minutes left, but Temple went on an 8-2 run in the final minutes that includes Williams’ 3-point play that got them within two.

“Most important thing was just getting a win. Closing out homecourt was very important to us, but ultimately the season isn’t over and we needed a win today,” Williams said.

Shizz Alston Jr. was the one to send it into overtime after rebounding his own miss and putting up a layup with six seconds left.

Alston -- who came in as Temple’s leading scorer averaging 13.7 points per game -- finished the game tying his career high of 25 points ultimately making the difference in overtime.

Not only did 13 of those points come in both overtimes, but the sophomore made all ten of his free throws during that time as well. They were his first ten since a loss to Southern Methodist on February 9, but he has made his last 28 total.

Eight of those ten free throws never would’ve happened if it weren’t for Malik Morgan’s deep 3-pointer as time expired in the first overtime.

Temple didn’t fold, though. It started the second half on a 7-0 run with a 3-pointer from Alston sandwiched between dunks by Quinton Rose and Obi Enechionyia.

The Owls escaped an upset by the second-worst team in the American Conference and they will be rewarded with a week-long rest before they play their final regular season game at South Florida -- the AAC’s worst team -- next Sunday at 2:00.

For Dunphy, he’s not completely convinced that these close wins might do any good come conference tournament time.

“We’ll see,” he said. “That would be nice, but it would be nice to not have nail-biters, too.”