Size Is Not An Issue With Temple

Saturday night, the Temple Owls will be making their first visit to Duquesne's Palumbo Center with a head coach other than John Chaney. The legend of North Broad Street has handed the reins to another Philly guy, Fran Dunphy, a La Salle alum and Penn's former head coach.

---

Temple (7-11, 1-4) Probable Starters

No. NAME               YR POS HT   WT   PPG  RPG Hometown
 4  Dion Dacons        SR F   6-6  210   7.1 7.2 Statesville, NC
 3  Dustin Salisbery   SR G   6-5  205  16.7 5.4 Lancaster, PA
13  Mark Tyndale       JR G   6-5  210  15.3 4.8 Philadelphia, PA
15  Semaj Inge         SO G   6-4  180   4.9 2.3 Camden, NJ
22  Dionte Christmas   SO G   6-5  190  20.9 4.3 Philadelphia, PA

The New Coach

Fran Dunphy, who guided the University of Pennsylvania men's basketball program to a school-record 310 wins and 10 Ivy League championships over the last 17 years, is Temple's 17th head men's basketball coach.

Dunph is the first person to serve as the head men's basketball coach at two Philadelphia Big 5 institutions. His predecessor, Hall of Fame coach John Chaney announced his retirement on March 13 after leading Temple to 516 wins and 23 postseason appearances in 24 years.

The former La Salle player and assistant coach, something of a Philadelphia legend on his own, has a connection to a fourth Big 5 school. He has a masters degreee in counseling and human relations from Villanova. Only Saint Joseph's (and Drexel once Philly figures how to rename the B5 with a 6th school) remains!

The Series

Temple holds a 35-12 advantage in the series with Duquesne (6-11, 2-4). Temple has won the last three meetings and 11 of the last 12. Duquesne’s win was a 61-54 decision in Pittsburgh on Jan, 8, 2003. Temple is 7-4 in games played at the Palumbo Center.

Four Guard Offense

Duquesne will not be outsized in this game. Senior Dion Dacons, a 6-foot-6, 210 pound small forward who prepped at the famed Oak Hill Academy, sees a quartet of guards in the starting lineup. Junior guard Mark Tyndale has started the last five games and joins senior Dustin Salisbery and sophomores Dionte Christmas and Semaj Inge on the court at the tip.

Sophomore 7-foot center Sergio Olmos is averaging 3.4 points and 2.9 rebounds in 16.1 minutes off the bench. The only other player above 6-foot-6 is sophomore Anthony Ivory (6-8, 350) who has played 12 minutes in five games.

The other players averaging more than 10 minutes per game are a pair of juniors, 6-foot-5 swing DaShone Kirkendall and 5-foot-8 point guard Chris Clark. Clark has a 2.89 assist per game average.

70

Temple’s magic number this season is 70. The Owls are 7-4 when they score 70 or more points and are winless when held to less than that (0-7).

Record Pace

Dionte Christmas, the Atlantic 10 Conference Co-Player of the Week, is on a record pace for free throw percentage in a season at Temple. He has connected on 92-of-102 attempts for a .902 percentage, just ahead of former Owl, TU assistant coach and NBA player Nate Blackwell (123-136, .904, ‘86-87).

NAME (Year)                 FT FTA  PCT
Dionte Christmas (‘06-07)   92 102 .902
Nate Blackwell (‘86-87 )   123 136 .904
Howard Evans (‘85-86)       99 113 .873
Lynn Greer (‘01-02)        172 197 .870
Mike Vreeswyk (‘88-89)     164 189 .868

National Numbers

Going into this week's action, sophomore guard Dionte Christmas is ranked 24th in the nation in scoring (20.1 ppg.), 18th in free throw percentage (.895) and 49th in three-point field goal percentage (.427). As a team, the Owls are 20th in turnovers per game (12.1 tpg.) and 67th in three-pointers made (7.7 pg.).