Updated: 9:21 p.m.
Brackets: East | South | Midwest | West
Fran Dunphy kept waiting to hear loud cheers inside Pearson McGonigle Hall on Temple’s campus.
Instead, things just kept getting quieter and quieter until eventual silence.
That was the Owls’ response after failing to get an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament when the field of 68 was announced on Sunday (but Villanova got a 1-seed).
“Well, they watched it. I can’t watch it. I’m just walking around the gym,” Dunphy said of the selection show. “I was just hoping that I would hear a roar of sorts or my phone would blow up.”
Despite a turnaround from 9-22 last season to 23 wins (13 in the American Athletic Conference) this year, an RPI of 34 and the nation’s 60th-ranked schedule, the Owls were denied a bid. They were later named a 1-seed in the NIT and will play Bucknell Wednesday (7 p.m.) at the Liacouras Center.
News
“You work so hard all year and put together some runs during the year, just not to hear your name called is kind of a disappointment,” an admittedly stunned Will Cummings said.
Temple fell just outside of those teams selected after power conferences gobbled up at-large berths and fellow bubble team Wyoming snatched a spot by surprisingly winning the Mountain West Conference tournament title. That caused the committee to award MWC championship game participant San Diego State one of those precious at-large places in the field.
Scott Barnes, the selection committee chair, even admitted on CBS after the bracket was revealed that Wyoming’s win stole a bid that ended up keeping Temple out. Not that it did much to console the Owls.
“I think we have a good enough résumé, better than some teams in the tournament,” Cummings said. “I’m not sure what goes into it. I don’t know what goes into picking teams or anything like that. I just know we gave it our all and tried to build the best résumé that we could and our name wasn’t called.
“It’s like a slap in the face.”
Dunphy wasn’t prepared to go that strongly at the committee, but the coach did notice a pattern of the teams that got in.
“I don’t know that it was a lack of respect for our conference. It looks like the power conferences, Power 5 as it were, seemed to get a large part of the attention,” Dunphy said.
“I think we’re a power basketball conference. I think we’ve got some really good teams in there. I was watching the final game today of UConn and SMU. That’s two really good basketball teams. But overall there’s no control. There’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing you can say. I would go to the committee and say what? You should have included Temple. Well, they didn’t.”
Temple isn’t without its own blame for missing the cut. The Owls struggled with really good teams, going just 2-8 against the RPI top-50. They also didn’t manage to record a signature win outside of a 25-point destruction of then-No. 10 Kansas at the Wells Fargo Center way back on Dec 22.
The most glaring hole in Temple’s résumé was certainly an inability to beat AAC champion SMU at any point this season. The Owls took a lead into halftime during each of their three matchups with the Mustangs — including Saturday’s AAC tournament semifinals — and each time they walked away with a loss.
“We had to probably win one more game. If we beat SMU, you wouldn’t be here asking me these questions right now,” Cummings said.
“Could we have done something else? As you look at it, we’re probably one win short of being in,” Dunphy said. “If we could have beaten SMU any one of the three times, could we have been in? Probably. There’s probably another win or so along the way we could have gotten that would have gotten us where we wanted to go.
“If we could have had one more win, then we would be dancing. But we didn’t get it.”
Getting that extra win will haunt Temple, especially when the Owls look at factors that might have impacted their record. Starting shooting guard and the team’s third-leading scorer, Jesse Morgan, missed the first 10 games because the transfer had only one semester left of eligibility. With key contributors Cummings and freshman forward Obi Enechionyia each hobbled and missing time during the season with injuries, the thought of not getting shut out of college basketball’s marquee event will sting the Owls for some time.
“I’m just still shocked,” Cummings said.
The Owls will have to shake that feeling off at some point over the next few days and get refocused for the NIT. There’s a laundry list of quality teams that have let the disappointment of not getting into the Big Dance linger into the NIT, which resulted in a quick exit.
Dunphy understands that heartbreak will live on for a while, but he wants the Owls to know they can still close out the 2014-15 campaign on a high.
“It’s an agonizing situation to wonder what’s going to happen all throughout this day,” he said. “Now the angst is over, the disappointment reins, but hope is still out there that we can finish this season strong with another tournament.”