Three weeks ago I published a piece on why people should start feeling good about Temple‘s chances to make noise this season. The Owls responded to my bold proclamation by losing to a mediocre St. Joseph’s team on that very same day and getting pasted by 23 points on the road against an admittedly excellent Villanova team. The results didn’t necessarily prove that I was an idiot for hyping Temple, but it didn’t exactly make me feel good about going out on that limb either. Today I am feeling much better after watching the Owls absolutely drub a Kansas team by 25 points that entered the game with one of the most impressive non-conference resumes of anyone in the country. On the surface, the outcome was a huge surprise as a usually efficient Jayhawks’ offense was bogged down by turnovers and missed jump shots. But the Owls have quietly been sneaking up KenPom’s team ratings and have pushed themselves squarely into the conference title discussion with conference play right around the corner. Casual college basketball fans may view the Owls’ victory Monday night as a stunning upset and it was, but the college basketball fans who have been paying close attention this season likely knew the Owls had more than a puncher’s chance of taking down the mighty Jayhawks in Philadelphia and here is why.

Temple’s Win Last Night Proves Its Dangerous to Doubt Fran Dunphy

1. Temple made more than half of their two-point baskets. It’s no secret that Fran Dunphy‘s club has been bricking shots at a frightening rate this season. Even after last night’s show, the team is still shooting just 42.9 percent on its two-point shots this season — good for 294th in the country and nearly five percentage points worse than the 47.6 percent that serves as the national average. Volume-scoring guards Will Cummings and Quenton DeCosey have been primarily to blame for this unsightly mark. They use the majority of the team’s possessions and take most of the team’s shots as well, which is unfortunate, because both players are still shooting under 40 percent on two-point field goals for the season. Monday night was a different story however. The Owls made 21-of-28 two-pointers (75 percent) and both Cummings (3-of-5 from inside the arc) and DeCosey (6-of-7 from inside the arc) played under control and allowed other players on the roster to shoulder some of the offensive burden as well. DeCosey and Cummings are still the team’s best and most important offensive players but they have often tried to do too much offensively, especially against good teams. Last night they led the team in scoring again, but they also patiently looked for good shots and got to the free-throw consistently, which put a lot of pressure on the Jayhawks’ defense and the unit was obviously unable to respond. The bad news is that it will be virtually impossible for the Owls to shoot the ball like they did last night again this season. They are a better offensive team than they have shown, but they aren’t THAT good. That said, if Cummings and DeCosey can settle down offensively and other players can chip in, Temple will continue to see its shooting percentages rise to a more respectable rate.

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Sometimes it can feel like Temple is the forgotten team in the AAC, and in some ways, it is a bit of an outsider. The Owls are the only basketball program that isn’t left over from the Big East or recently added from Conference USA, and because the basketball program has been decidedly “mid-major” since the John Chaney days in the mid-1980s, Temple doesn’t seem to fit neatly into either the “football” or “basketball” profile. Instead, the Owls serve as a bridge between the conference’s basketball standard-bearers and its bottom-feeders. A program that’s not quite good enough to receive the sort of attention that UConn and Memphis receive on the national level, but also a program much too good for college basketball enthusiasts to ignore. They are, however, worth paying attention to this season because as the conference has devolved into a mire of early mediocrity, the Owls have seemingly put last season’s 9-22 campaign behind them. Now, they aren’t all the way back, as evidenced by a blowout loss to Duke and a disappointing follow-up loss to UNLV, but they are obviously much improved and with head coach Fran Dunphy steering the ship, Owls’ fans should be feeling better about the state of the program.

Temple Coach Fran Dunphy Has Retooled The Team’s Defense And It Is Making A Big Difference. (Getty)

Temple remains under the radar this season and that makes a lot of sense, primarily because the Owls didn’t make a great first impression by scoring only 40 points in a season-opening win against American, and also because it hasn’t beaten anyone of note yet (although Louisiana Tech is pretty good). But in what is rapidly becoming a wide-open conference with more and more questions by the week, there are a few reasons folks should be higher on the Owls’ prospects this season than they currently are.

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In the coming week or two, we will be posting as much preview content as possible. We are continuing today with five freshmen to watch, coming on the heels of five players and five coaches to watch last week. There is still plenty more to come.

This whole preview post could have been a tribute to the talents of one Emmanuel Mudiay, who originally committed to hometown SMU but, much to the dismay of SMU and college basketball fans, opted to get paid to play professionally in China. Without his presence, this list lacks the star power evident in other conferences like the ACC and Pac-12. The dearth of top prospects in the AAC is so notable that, according to Rivals, only one of the country’s top 20 and two of the top 75 recruits committed to play for league schools this season. The silver lining, on the other hand, is that there is still very good talent coming into some of these programs, and because so many schools have question marks, many of those freshmen will get an immediate chance to make an impact.

Daniel Hamilton, forward, UConn

The conference’s best freshman may also be its most important, as the Huskies are not only expecting the multi-talented Hamilton to contribute right away, they are expecting him to play an important role in replacing the production of stars Shabazz Napier and DeAndre Daniels. The 6’7″ Hamilton may be the team’s starting small forward from the opening tip and if he can play passable defense and avoid poor decisions, he has more than enough talent to run away with Freshman of the Year honors in the AAC.

Daniel Hamilton Is Not Only The Conference’s Best Freshman, He Is Also A Key Piece For UConn. (247)

Hamilton doesn’t just have great talent; he also has great pedigree. His oldest brother, Gary, played at Miami and professionally overseas. His other brother, Jordan, was a star at Texas and currently plays for the Utah Jazz. A third brother, Isaac, is a former five-star recruit looking to start his collegiate career at UCLA this season. Daniel is the last in line among his brothers and he could be the best of the bunch thanks to his length, athleticism, and ability to score from anywhere on the floor. A smooth shooter with deep range, he is an intelligent player who is also slippery and quick with the ball in his hands. Minutes will be difficult to come by in UConn’s crowded backcourt, but Hamilton should have the edge because his size and athleticism will allow him to defend multiple positions and grab the occasional rebound. If the Huskies are even going to consider defending their national title, Hamilton will need to figure it out sooner rather than later. Read the rest of this entry »

1. News from last week’s Media Day is still trickling out and that means that we continue to gather evidence that says SMU coach Larry Brown is ready to take on all comers. The Dallas Morning News published a brief but illuminating interview from the event and it features a lot of Brown at his finest. He called the AAC an underrated conference. He called college basketball the “best minor league system” in the world. He challenged Mark Cuban over whether college basketball or the D-League is better at developing players, and he admitted that he wasn’t “excited” about the precedent Emmanuel Mudiay might have set by opting to play professionally in China. On the topic of college basketball v. D-League, I’m with the folks over at College Basketball Talk on this one. Each player is different and there is no right or wrong place for that player to be. It seems almost a little absurd to have this argument in the first place. The other big takeaway here is that Brown has been around for too long to care about mincing words anywhere, which is going to only make this season even more fun to follow.
2. For now, it’s safe to pay only a little attention to news that Memphis forward Shaq Goodwin suffered a recent groin injury. But the Tigers’ other projected starting forward, sophomore Austin Nichols, is dealing with a shoulder strain, meaning that Memphis’ frontcourt is awfully banged up going into its huge season opener against Wichita State. The team expects its junior leader to only miss about a week of practice — and reports are that he should be ready to go when the Tigers square off with the Shockers — but let’s just say that the Tigers absolutely need a healthy Goodwin if they want to be successful this season.
3. Temple head coach Fran Dunphy has obviously been keeping close tabs on this microsite because he is clearly cribbing from our analysis when he recently said that his team’s improvement has to start on the defensive end. Okay, so it’s doesn’t take a basketball genius to realize that the Owls were terrible defensively last season, so maybe Dunphy came to the idea independently. At least he was right. The Owls ranked No. 257 in defensive efficiency last season and that is totally unacceptable for any team that wants to sniff the NCAA Tournament. The piece rightly points out that one reason to hope that the team’s defense will be better this year is that they are deeper and more athletic thanks to transfers like Jaylen Bond and healthy returnees like Daniel Dingle. It’s always smart to trust in Dunphy, so if he recognizes that his team needs to be better defensively, they should be able to get at least some things fixed on that end of the floor.
4. As Mick Cronin continues to try to rebuild Cincinnati into the type of perennial national contender it once was, one of the next steps is to improve the team’s local gym. The Fifth Third Arena, where the Bearcats play all of their home games, isn’t exactly a beloved venue, and now word has leaked that the university is taking the first steps to rectify that situation. Reports in recent months have said that the university filed paperwork with the state about renovating the arena, but on Friday athletic director Mike Bohn basically told everyone to pump the brakes. The plan has not been approved by the Board of Trustees and Bohn seemed particularly cagey when discussing whether it might be approved at all. A renovation would help modernize the building and make it more fan-friendly, but it will also be really expensive — like $40 to $70 million expensive. It could provide a big boost in recruiting, though, so if Cincinnati is serious about competing in basketball nationally, the school may get it done sooner than later.
5. It’s basically old news at this point, but the season still hasn’t started so I am cutting myself some slack. UCF landed a big recruit, both literally and metaphorically, when 7’6″ center Tacko Fall pledged his services to the Golden Knights. A native of Senegal, Fall’s best basketball trait is that he is absolutely enormous and affects the way opposing offenses run just by being on the court. He is hardly fleet of foot, but he does move deceptively well for a man his size and may not be totally hopeless on offense. Now the question is whether coach Donnie Jones will ever get to see this recruiting class on campus — adding incredible size always helps, so long as you can stay around to coach it.

Although we aren’t even halfway through the conference schedule, the herd of NCAA Tournament contenders has thinned considerably and there are some teams whose prospects of playing in any meaningful postseason tournament are already dead in the water. We are gathered here today to celebrate their brief turn in the conference conversation.

Why are we mourning Temple?

It Has Been A Trying Season For Coach Fran Dunphy

The Owls beat Rutgers at home on Wednesday, but unfortunately it was also their first conference win in eight tries and the Scarlet Knights have more than one foot in the proverbial grave too. The team that was picked by the conference coaches to finish fifth currently sits in last place and has limped to a 6-13 start to the season. There is talent here and the team has been competitive against good opponents like Texas and Cincinnati, but their best win came in early December when they beat a mediocre Saint Joseph’s team at home, and they still have to play Villanova, SMU twice, and Louisville twice. Short of a miraculous AAC Tournament run, there is quite literally no hope for the Owls to make the NCAA Tournament or even the NIT, and it would take a strong finish for them to play their way into the CBI, something no team should enjoy being said about them.

How did they end up here?

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1. Much has been made of the sellout crowd on hand for the first time in more than a decade in the newly renovated Moody Coliseum during SMU’s recent upset of UConn. But during a recent radio segment, a Dallas Morning News columnist posed the question of whether SMU can sustain the same attendance numbers and energetic atmosphere against lesser visiting opponents. It’s a timely question, given that the Mustangs’ next three opponents are USF, Hofstra and Rutgers. Those games should help us gain a better sense as to whether the UConn crowd was simply lightning in a bottle or indicative of long-term community engagement. Meteoric shifts in fan behavior don’t typically occur overnight, especially for small, long-neglected programs like SMU, but stay tuned.
2. Memphis strength and conditioning coach Frank Matrisciano has left the program for unspecified reasons after spending two and a half seasons on the Tigers’ staff. The Commercial Appeal reports that the coach was fired by Josh Pastner due to “philosophical differences in strength and conditioning,” but there seems to be more to this story. Did we mention that Matrisciano is Pastner’s brother-in-law? The coach, whose preferred title at Memphis was reportedly “Life Changer,” said that he had originally envisioned spending about a year on the Memphis staff, and felt he had “met all [his] obligations. I felt I blew this place up and turned it on to a whole different level of fitness that they’d never seen before,” he added, somewhat bizarrely. It’s not unreasonable to infer from the abrupt timing and icy comments from both parties that there’s some personal drama underlying Matrisciano’s departure, and it couldn’t come at a worst time with a trip to Louisville looming this week.
3. Temple head coach Fran Dunphy will have seven scholarship players at his disposal when the Owls take on USF tomorrow night. Recent injuries to 6’7” sophomore Daniel Dingle and 6’8” freshman Mark Williams have been the latest setbacks for a rebuilding Owls team already beset by inexperience and poor depth. While Williams is day-to-day with a sprained ankle and could be available for Saturday’s game against Memphis, there is no timetable in place for Dingle’s return after he underwent surgery on Monday to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. Dingle and Williams were logging 20 and 18 minutes per game, respectively, and have each started at various points in the season, with Dingle showing signs of major progress before injuring his knee in late December.
4. Cincinnati and Louisville remain the only AAC teams undefeated in conference play after the Bearcats escaped Houston on the road last night, 61-60. The biggest storyline of the game may have been how well Houston acquitted itself in the second half, clawing back into the conteste despite trailing 40-24 at halftime. It was then that the American Athletic Conference’s most accurate three-point shooting team lived up to its billing, hitting 7-of-10 threes as James Dickey’s squad strived to prove it belongs among the league’s upper echelon. Cincinnati’s press clearly rattled Houston’s players early in the game, as the Bearcats built a 10-0 advantage in steals, but the Cougars steadied once TaShawn Thomas said “we realized we can handle the pressure and play with these guys.” Cincinnati moved to 3-0 in league play and extended its lead in the all-time series versus Houston to 23-1.
5. With junior Anthony Collins hampered once again by knee problems and no viable backup for Corey Allen, the Tampa Bay Times’ Joey Knight reports that Stan Heath may burn his son’s redshirt for the sake of the team’s point guard depth. Josh Heath earned all-state honors at Tampa Prep last year and has shown a natural grasp of the elder Heath’s offense in practices, according to senior forward Victor Rudd. Knight points out that having the freshman run the point would allow Allen to generate offense more effectively from the two-guard position. “I know he’s not going to be ready ready,” said coach Heath, “but there are some things I think he can do from just making decisions and making plays to make things better and take Corey off the ball a little bit.”

1. Louisville will have a hard time securing a top seed in the NCAA Tournament with its 105th-rated non-conference strength of schedule. The Cardinals’ only two strong opponents to date, versus Kentucky and North Carolina, both ended in losses. As a comparison, the 2004-05 squad collected 27 wins to just four losses in Conference USA and ended up with a #4 seed. That team’s non-conference strength of schedule was rated 107th. Louisville needs to hope to dominate the AAC if it wants a high NCAA seed this time around. It wouldn’t hurt if Memphis continued its strong play and remained ranked to help the league’s overall perception. Connecticut, for its part, already seems to be headed in the wrong direction by losing its conference opener at Houston.
2. Sean Kilpatrick is struggling with his shot in recent games, and head coach Mick Cronin said the reason is that he’s rushing and that the ball “is on fire” when he releases it. In Cincinnati’s last two games, Kilpatrick has connected on only 5-of-25 shots from the field and 1-of-12 from three-point land. Kilpatrick said that his shots are not that far off and he’s not worried about it other than to say it’s just a slump. Cronin said he wants to make sure he gets his accuracy corrected before the slump turns into something more substantial. Contrastingly, one place were he has not struggled is at the foul line, making 23-of-24 attempts over the last two games, both of which were Bearcats’ victories.
3. The Cincinnati program and fans will have to get used to life outside of the old Big East this season. Last year, in what was considered one of the nation’s best basketball conferences, Cincinnati’s first three conference games were against Pittsburgh, St. John’s and Notre Dame. This year, heading in geographic opposition, the Bearcats start with SMU (a win), Memphis and Houston. As a league, the AAC currently ranks ninth nationally, according to CBSSports.com’s Rating Percentage Index, a far cry from the former powerhouse status of the Big East. Cronin said he expects the league to develop a flow over time, as all leagues do — he compared it to Conference USA and expects to have plenty of success in the new AAC as they once did in C-USA (and the Great Midwest before that). It’ll be interesting to see what type of respect the new conferences garners on Selection Sunday this year — is this a three-team league?
4. Temple’s rebuilding year became even more so recently when sophomore forward Daniel Dingle was sidelined with a tear in his right meniscus suffered last weekend. He’s expected to miss the rest of the season. Dingle was averaging 6.7 points and 2.3 rebounds per game, but more importantly, he had been playing his best basketball lately, scoring 25 points and dishing nine assists in the Owls’ previous two games. Temple’s roster was already thin with just nine scholarship players, so this puts even more of a burden on Fran Dunphy’s group headed into conference play.
5. SMU can no longer hide behind a gaudy record earned from its non-conference schedule. After winning five straight, the Mustangs opened AAC play with a loss on the road to Cincinnati and the tough slate only continues with Connecticut coming to town Saturday before a date at Louisville. The record of SMU’s first five conference opponents is a sterling 51-12, a major and quick step up in their quality of competition. The Mustangs received their first vote for the AP Top 25 in a decade this week and they’ll have plenty of upcoming opportunities to prove they belong there and with the AAC’s elite in the coming weeks.

1. 2013 did not end well for Oklahoma State with the loss of Michael Cobbins to a ruptured Achilles tendon. 2014 is not starting off much better as backup point guard Stevie Clark was arrested just ten hours into the New Year for possession of marijuana. This is not the first time that Clark has dealt with disciplinary issues while in Stillwater as he was suspended at the start of his freshman year for an undisclosed violation of team rules. Given the way these type of issues are dealt with we doubt that Clark will miss a substantial amount of time. And we would certainly expect him to be back by January 18 when the Cowboys welcome Kansas to Stillwater.
2. This has not been the type of season that we have come to expect of Temple and things may have taken a turn for the worse as sophomore Daniel Dingle could miss the rest of the season with a tear in his right meniscus. Dingle, 6’7″ forward, had been averaging 6.7 point and 2.3 rebounds per game this season. Without him, the Owls are down to just nine scholarship players. With their AAC schedule starting on January 9, the Owls are in a precarious position and at this point can probably forget about getting into any kind of postseason tournament.
3. Texas A&M picked up a big transfer yesterday as they landed SMU transfer Jalen Jones. You may remember that Jones announced that he would be transferring from SMU just as the season started. Jones, who led the Mustangs in scoring (14 per game) and rebounding (7 per game) last season, has two more years of eligibility remaining. Although there are reports that the Aggies will be applying for a waiver so Jones can play immediately we cannot imagine a scenario in which the NCAA would grant it although as we have said before they seem to granting waivers for everything else.
4. Looking for a more “scientific” preview of the upcoming conference races? As usual, Ken Pomeroy has you covered. In Part 1 and Part 2 of his three-part conference race preview (we assume Part 3 will be coming later today), Pomeroy ran Monte Carlo simulations of each conference race to predict the likelihood that each team will win their conference regular season. These races are ranked in order of competitiveness so do not wait for Part 3 to see where your power conference team is projected to finish. The Big 12 and Big Ten (arguably the two best conferences in the country) are ranked 17th and 14th respectively in terms of competitiveness.
5. Was one 116-12 game not enough for you? If you answered yes, then you may in luck as it appears that Southern and Champion Baptist appear to want to continue their “rivalry”. For those of you who missed the game on Monday, Southern scored the first 44 points of the game to set a NCAA record and continued to press well after the game was decided, which was probably in warm-ups. There is a possibility that next year’s match-up could be more competitive as Southern only beat Christian Baptist 90-36 last season so maybe Monday night was an aberration.

Joe Dzuback of Villanova by the Numbers is the RTC correspondent for the A-10 Conference. You can follow him on Twitter at @vbtnblog

Top Storylines

• The Best Basketball (Only) Conference in the NCAA? You Bet– With the departure of Temple (to the Big East) and Charlotte (to CUSA), A-10 fans knew the conference would not “make due” with a 12-team configuration. The question was which candidates would match best with the conference profile and mission and not in the chase for football money? The A-10 could afford to focus on candidates with high quality basketball programs, thereby offering regional rivalries to the Midwestern and Washington D.C. metro area members. Virginia Commonwealth and Butler were the logical choices as both have had recent Final Four appearances, are high quality programs, and boast two of the hottest young coaching names in Division I. Both schools accepted and the existing circumstances of member departures and arrivals means that the A-10, with 16 members and an 18-game conference slate, will have a superconference look and feel this season.
  

  Veteran St. Joseph’s Coach Phil Martelli Has Garnered Plenty Of Media Attention Over The Years. Now Thanks To A New TV Deal, The Entire Atlantic-10 is Going to Get a Dose Of Camera Time (AP)

• The New TV Deal – The conference announced an eight-year partnership with ESPN, the CBS Sports Network and the NBC Sports Network, worth an estimated $40 million dollars ($5 million per year) to run from 2013-14 through 2021-22. The three media outlets will televise 64 regular season men’s games (CBS and NBC Sports Network will televise 25 apiece and the ESPN outlets will televise 14). These three outlets will divvy the responsibilities for the conference tournament with NBC televising the men’s (and women’s) quarterfinals, CBS televising the men’s (and women’s) semifinal games, and ESPN/ESPN2/ESPNU televising the men’s championship game. Though financial details were not disclosed, the conference’s 14 members are expected to collect about $400,000 apiece each season.
• Brooklyn, Here We Come – A quiet affirmation that the move to lock up the Barclays Center in Brooklyn came with Hurricane Sandy. The superstorm swamped Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Boardwalk Hall, previous site of the conference’s championship tournament. The Barclays Center has garnered positive reviews for its architecture, facilities and amenities. The brand-new facility will work out the kinks with a number of invitational tournaments (Barclays Center Classic, Coaches vs. Cancer, Legends Classic, Brooklyn Hoops Winter Festival and Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational) and be ready to host the conference tournament next March.

Reader’s Take I

Signs that the A-10 is in for a wild ride this season are everywhere. CBS Sports’ five basketball experts (Jeff Goodman, Doug Gottlieb, Gary Parrish, Matt Norlander and Jeff Borzello) tabbed four different schools (Butler, Massachusetts, Saint Louis and Virginia Commonwealth) to take the regular season crown. The A-10 coaches named a fifth school – Saint Joseph’s – at the conference’s Media Day earlier this month. Note that nobody in that group is named Temple or Xavier – the two schools which have passed the regular season crown back-and-forth for the last five seasons.

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