City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The roller-coaster ride that has been Temple men’s basketball continues.

It’s been a crazy few years for the Cherry and White faithful, who’ve seen their program swing from the national rankings to the basement and back to March Madness in the last 10 years. A run of six consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances (2008-13) was snapped with a draining nine-win season three years back, which was followed in kind by a 26-win season that saw the Owls the first program on the outside looking in at an NCAA at-large selection.

Last year was as up-and-down as they came, with three losses in four games to open the year and a 4-5 record after a Dec. 13 loss to Saint Joseph’s, but they rallied to win 20 regular-season games and despite falling to UConn in the American Athletic Conference tournament semifinal, still qualified for the NCAAs -- where they lost to Iowa on a put-back layup in an overtime heartbreaker.

So far, this 2016-17 season has been more of the same: two major offseason injuries lowering the bar, a big win to start the year raising it, an utterly disappointing defeat to follow setting it back down again. Then, the last 48 hours really threw the ride for another loop.

Despite a short rotation and heavy reliance on youth, the Owls went up to Brooklyn and recorded wins over No. 25 Florida State (89-86) on Thursday and No. 19 West Virginia (81-77) on Friday to take home the NIT Season Tip-Off championship at the Barclays Center.

Neither of them were impossible upsets: college basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy’s site gave Florida State a 79 percent chance at the game’s outset, and West Virginia 86 percent. But considering how things had gone recently, the odds seemed far longer than that as the Owls headed up to play the pair of games in the NBA arena.

It started months before the first practices, when sophomore guard Trey Lowe was involved in a car accident last February that has forced him to redshirt this season as he continues to recover. Then Josh Brown, the team’s senior point guard and guiding presence, tore his Achilles in May; he’s out indefinitely, and could end up redshirting this season as well.

So coming into the year, Dunphy had to deal with starting a freshman (Alani Moore) at point guard and starting a sophomore off guard (Levan Alston Jr.) who averaged two points per game as a freshman; his only two healthy seniors (Daniel Dingle, Mark Williams) had served as nothing more than complementary pieces in their time at the school.

Everything clicked in the opener, a 97-92 win against La Salle, with Dingle scoring a career-high 21, Alston going for a career-best 14 points and six assists and Moore/fellow freshman Quinton Rose adding eight and 12, respectively.

Then they turned around and put up all of 52 points in a home loss to New Hampshire, a bucket of water on the flames stocked by that opening win. A three-point road loss to Massachusetts didn’t help matters much, and bouncing back to beat Manhattan at home -- while showing some nice signs -- wasn’t any indication this team was on the road to competing for a league championship.

Now, things look a little different.

The freshmen both came up huge in Brooklyn. Rose, a 6-6 wing from Bishop Kearney (N.Y.), went off for a career-high 26 points in the win over Florida State, then had 12 against WVU; Moore had his best with 18 against West Virginia and made game-saving plays in both, namely a crucial steal against Florida State and a terrific late offensive rebound against West Virginia.

In fact, everybody in Dunphy’s steady seven-man rotation is playing at the best level we’ve seen so far in their respective college careers.

Dingle, a 6-7 swingman, is averaging 13.5 ppg, shooting 44.3 percent from the floor and knocking down 40 percent of his triples. Alston is right behind him at 12.8 ppg and 3.5 rpg, with a terrific 31 assists (5.2/game) against just four turnovers, a 7.75-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Williams (4.8 ppg, 3.0 rpg) and sophomore big man Ernest Aflakpui (5.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg) have both provided solid interior scoring and rebounding.

Leading the way has been junior forward Obi Enechionyia, who’s turned into the star he’s showed the potential of being since he arrived on campus out of St. James (Md.). The 6-10 forward is averaging a team-high 20.2 ppg, shooting an unreal 56.3 percent from 3-point range (18-of-32), while averaging nine rebounds and three blocks to boot.

Things don’t let up for Temple from here. Up next is a trip across the city to Big 5 rival Saint Joseph’s on Wednesday at what will be a very unfriendly Hagan Arena, then a visit from Penn (Dec. 3) and former Atlantic 10 rival George Washington (Dec. 7) before a game in Miami against DePaul (Dec. 10) and subsequent trip to defending national champion Villanova (Dec. 13).

What do these last two games tell us?

They certainly confirm that it’s an Owls squad capable of playing at a high level on both ends of the court. But both games featured wild swings, with Temple needing to come from down 18 against Florida State to beat the Seminoles, and then giving up a 20-point lead against West Virginia before rallying for the championship.

If recent history tells us anything, there are going to be games where that youth and inexperience shows, when the shots aren’t falling, when the lights aren’t as bright and the distractions more easily take hold.

Then there’s the matter of if Brown returns -- a big “if,” but not one to rule out just yet, as the 6-3 senior continues to practice -- he’ll provide a big boost, indeed, and a Temple squad that was picked sixth in the AAC’s preseason poll will have a chance to overachieve yet again.

Certainly, it’s a more exciting ride now than it was two days ago.

Hold on.