City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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Temple guard Khalif Battle didn’t mind the brief pause in the celebration. In Battle’s words, the party was, ‘just getting started.’

After a game-clinching steal by Zach Hicks with almost no time on the clock, the final buzzer sounded and the Owls’ student section stormed the court at the Liacouras Center, thinking an upset win over No. 16 Villanova was already final.

They were eventually cleared off the floor as the officials put 0.2 seconds left on the clock, surrounding the court ready to storm again while Battle and his teammates began to celebrate with them.

Hicks’ final two free throws made the final score 68-64 Temple. One more Villanova inbounds play later, and the fans were back on the court celebrating the Owls’ first win over the Wildcats since 2012.

“I can’t put it into words,” said Battle, who finished with 21 points. “You watch it as a kid, but you never experience it happening. Temple is one of the big-time programs. We’re trying to bring it back to that. It’s a big deal. It’s fun. It felt like a big party out there.”

There was plenty of optimism and excitement surrounding the Owls entering the season with a barometer test against the Wildcats early on circled as an opportunity to find out if Aaron McKie’s squad was legit in his fourth year as head coach.

Instead, Temple stumbled out of the gates on Monday with an overtime loss to Wagner. Would expectations have to be recalibrated?

A pair of Damian Dunn free throws with 1.1 seconds left on Friday — part of a team-high 22-point effort — righted the ship, also giving hope to the Owls and their faithful that Monday night was more first-game jitters than an indication of what's to come this season. 

“This is my first time playing Villanova,” Dunn said. “I’ve been here four years and seeing the type of program they carry here. Knocking down a Top 25 team at home, I think that was big for us, but we have a lot of basketball left. We’re going to use that momentum we got today and keep moving forward, keep protecting home and keep collecting wins and keep getting better and I think we’ll be fine.”

The Owls jumped out to as big a lead as 13 points in the first half before leading, 34-29, at the break. Temple built that advantage back up to eight, 45-37, in the second half before 10 straight points from the Wildcats gave Villanova its first lead of the game, 47-45, with 10:41 to play.

What ensued was the ‘classic Big 5 basketball game’ many hoop heads in the city like to talk about. There were 13 lead changes in the game’s final 10 minutes, including five in the last two minutes of play.

Villanova sophomore Jordan Longino appeared to hit the shot of the game when he drained a three with 58 seconds to put the Wildcats up, 64-62. It was one of the few Wildcats buckets not converted by redshirt-junior forward Eric Dixon (18 points) or graduate guard Caleb Daniels (19 points) in the second half.

Dunn got to the foul line on the next possession and tied the game at 64-64 with a pair of free throws with 45 seconds left. As Villanova came back down the court, he was switched onto Daniels, putting up just enough defense to force a rare miss inside. 

“I just wanted to stay on the attack, read how they were guarding me,” Daniels said of the possession. “I made a read, turned out to be the right read, just missed the shot.”

A rebound with 24 seconds left gave Temple a chance to win. Dunn certainly earned the opportunity to take the Owls home. His teammates knew he was the one who was going to get the ball in that type of situation before the season even started.

“I wasn’t going to pass it to nobody else,” Battle said. “It’s either him or I’m taking the last shot. We knew Dame, we saw what he could do last year in crunch time. He did it again. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. I told him earlier in the season whenever the game came down to the wire in practice, everybody get out on the way and late Damian get the ball on an iso. He’s an isolation player and he has a knack for just winning the game.”

The Owls spread the floor and let Dunn attack Wildcats’ graduate 6-8 graduate forward Brandon Slater. Dunn got a step on Slater and was bumped as he attacked the right side of the lane, sending him to the line where he delivered Temple one of the most significant wins in a long time.

“I was just putting pressure on the referee to make a call,” Dunn said. “That was really it.”

The Owls entered Friday night with seven straight losses to the Wildcats, losing by an average of 18 points per game in those contests — none finishing within a single-digit differential.

However, the two teams hadn’t played since December 2018 due to COVID-19 impacting multiple scheduled games. Villanova’s Slater and Chris Arcidiacono were the only players on the court Friday night to see action in that game.

McKie said his team executed their game plan to perfection, forcing the Wildcats to score inside as they held Villanova to 2-for-7 shooting from 3-point range.

“They’re one of the gold standard programs in college basketball,” McKie said. “It’s one of those things where they want layups or they want threes. It’s been their strength for such a long time. They’ve got some potent 3-point shooters and so you gotta decide how you want to go down. Is it allowing those guys to take and make threes or say they're going to shoot 48 percent in the game but only two for seven from the 3-point line. I’ll take that.”

The Owls were also boosted by the presence of 6-foot-11, 280-pound sophomore forward Jamille Reynolds, who scored 14 points and grabbed 12 boards (five offensive) and was one of the big reasons this Temple squad had so much buzz in the preseason.

“I thought they were really physical to start the game,” Villanova first-year coach Kyle Neptune said after his first loss as the Wildcats' head man. “I thought they imposed their will on the offensive glass. I know they had like five or six offensive rebounds to start the game. Neither team could score. I thought that was the difference early. They made it tough for us all night. It was never easy.”

Making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019 — and the first time in McKie’s tenure as head coach — will be at the center of the discussion around this Temple team throughout the season.

They already have two potentially impactful results in their first two games with a bad loss and what history suggests will be a really good win at season’s end.

Though they won’t have the same history or magnitude behind them as a win over the rival Wildcats, Temple has plenty of resume boosting opportunities ahead — Vanderbilt, Rutgers, St. John’s and either Richmond or Syracuse are up next.

They hope to keep the party going.

“Me and (Dunn) together, we’ve always talked about since we’ve been here what could happen when we play our best basketball together,” Battle said. “I still don’t think we’ve played our best basketball still. I still think we haven’t put a full 40 together, but it’s a good start and when we put a full 40 together it’s going to be a scary sight.”