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NEW YORK — They talked a lot about the Temple Owls basketball tradition. And they know that more important than understanding the tradition and talking about the tradition is adding to it.
Temple has reached the NCAA Tournament 32 times, 12th-most of any school.
For all its tradition, 10-seed Temple has lost seven of its last nine NCAA Tournament games and hasn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 2001, when John Chaney got the Owls there for the eighth time in the program's history.
Over the past 15 years, Temple's only NCAA Tournament wins came in the first round — the Owls beat Penn State by two in 2011 in Tucson, Arizona and North Carolina State by four in 2013 in Dayton, Ohio.
On Friday, a few guys who are acutely aware of that Temple tradition — senior forward Jaylen Bond out of Plymouth-Whitemarsh and senior guard Devin Coleman out of Friends Central — spoke about adding a chapter of their own to that Temple tradition.
“I remember Temple being an all-around good team,” Coleman said. “A lot of the years when I was coming up, when I was starting to get into college basketball, Temple was typically a top-25 team.
“So just knowing that, always knowing the history, and obviously being from Philadelphia, I know a little more of the history, like [they’re] the sixth-winningest program in college basketball and everything like that. It's just a great tradition.”
Temple, 21-11 and winners of 10 of its last 13 games, faces 7-seed Iowa, 21-10 and losers of six of its last eight games, at 3 p.m. Friday at Brooklyn's Barclays Center in the South Region of the NCAA Tournament.
The winner plays on Sunday against the winner of the game Friday between 2-seed Villanova and 15-seed UNC Asheville.
“What I remember is it was a tough, defensive-minded team when I was growing up,” Bond said. “That's something that I wanted to bring here when I came to Temple, just be a tough defensive player and make it hard for the offense to score.”
Bond and Coleman both transferred back to Philly after starting their college careers elsewhere — Bond at Texas, Coleman at Clemson.
“To be a part of it is great,” Coleman said. “To be a part of the team that got Temple back to the NCAA Tournament is a wonderful thing.”
There are three players left from the last Temple team to reach the NCAAs — Quenton DeCosey, Daniel Dingle and Devontae Watson. But none of them played much back in 2013 and none of them even got on the court in the Owls’ NCAA win over NC State or loss to Indiana.
The only Owl who’s played in an NCAA Tournament game is Bond, who was on the court for nine minutes in Texas' first-round loss to Cincinnati in Nashville, Tennessee in 2012.
When Bond and Coleman were growing up in or near Philly, Temple was a perennial NCAA Tournament team. Both said one of the things that makes playing for Temple special is how many of the stars of those great Chaney or Fran Dunphy teams remain close to the program.
Aaron McKie, the all-time Temple great and former Sixer, is an assistant coach at Temple, so he’s around every day to remind the Owls of the tradition they need to live up to.
“Just having him on the coaching staff right now is an honor,” Bond said. “Just watching him growing up, being from Philadelphia, somebody I looked up to growing up.”
But there are many others who are constantly reminding the youngsters of Temple's rich history.
“A lot of the older guys that have graduated come back and are actually around,” Coleman said. “We have guys that are around. Mark Macon is around a lot. Nick Kilgore is around a lot. Even more recent guys, Chris Clark is around. Luis Guzman was a point guard on that team with Dionte Christmas and those guys.
“So we have a lot of guys that are around Temple, a whole lot of wisdom on us, and just make sure we do everything we can to be the best players and people for Temple University.”
A win Friday would mean the Owls had advanced in the tourney three times in the last six years, and it would set up a likely Big 5 rematch with the Wildcats that would guarantee at least one Philly school's moving on to the Sweet 16 in Louisville.
Temple’s last visit to the Sweet 16 was in 2001 — as an 11-seed.
“The opportunity ahead of us is great,” DeCosey said. “Just getting back to the NCAA Tournament is a blessing. Being on the team that got back to the tournament is a blessing. So we just want to try to make a run.”