Temple University Athletics
OWLS CLINCH SECOND PLACE TIE WITH 61-48 WIN OVER UMASS
2.26.05 | Men's Basketball
PHILADELPHIA -- After three days of turmoil off the court, the Temple men's basketball team found 40 minutes of peace on it. The Owls, playing under the direction of acting coach Dan Leibovitz, downed the visiting UMass Minutemen (15-10, 8-6), 61-48, at the Liacouras Center Saturday afternoon.The win enabled Temple (14-11, 10-6) to clinch a tie for second place in the Atlantic 10 East Division. An Owl win or a Fordham Ram loss over the next week will earn the Cherry and White the all-important first round bye in the A-10 Tournament.
"I was more nervous the last three days than I was today," stated the 31-year-old Leibovitz, who will be Temple's acting head coach for the remainder of the season while head coach John Chaney serves a three-game suspension.
Leibovitz, in his ninth year on the Temple bench, is tied for the longest tenure among A-10 assistant coaches. This, however, was the first time he acted as head coach at the high school or collegiate level. And he did so as a result of the suspension of the Owls' Hall of Fame coach.
"I said I think we have to forget about everything (that happened this week)," Leiboviitz told the team in his pre-game talk. "We have to fall in love with basketball again. Just go out there and have fun, don't overcomplicate it. Show me that you want to win and everything else will fall into place."
The Owls clearly looked lost at the start of the contest, missing their first 14 three-pointers and falling behind 22-11, after 12 minutes of play. When sophomore guard Dustin Salisbery finally found the bottom of the net from behind the arc with 5:16 to play in the half, the score was 24-18 in favor of UMass.
But it was not until the insertion of senior Nehemiah Ingram that the Owls took the lead. Ingram, who made the hard foul on Saint Joseph's John Bryant in Tuesday's game that resulted in the fifth year senior fracturing his arm, came off the Temple bench at the 3:20 mark and Temple went on a 9-0 run, taking the lead for good, 29-25, at intermission.
"Nehemiah feels very sorry about what happened," stated Leibovitz. "He is one of the nicest kids on our team. It is not something he wished upon anybody -- to be hurt. I was happy he was able to get in the game today to do some basketball things.
"I am sorry that it happened and I hope he recovers in enough time to play again," said Ingram on the Bryant injury.
Leibovitz again inserted Ingram, who had played just 54 minutes on the season, with just under 14 minutes remaining and the Owls holding a 37-33 advantage. Rashaun Freeman made a lay-up to cut the margin to a basket, but TU then scored eight unanswered points to take a 45-35 lead. Ingram accounted for three of those points, on a three-point play, his first points in 10 games.
The Minutemen would never cut the margin under double figures the remainder of the contest
"He did a good job," said junior co-captain Mardy Collins on Ingram. "We wanted to get him back out there today. People thought we just put him out there to hurt somebody and Nehemiah, he has not been playing too much this season so we wanted to get him back out there. He is not out there to do things like that. He is out there to play basketball. He got out there and gave us a little spark today."
Collins, the leading candidate for A-10 Player of the Year honors, had a big game for the Owls. The 6-6 point guard tallied a game-high 25 points, tied for game honors with nine rebounds and made a game-high five steals.
Mark Tyndale added 10 points, seven rebounds and dished a game-high five assists while Antywane Robinson tied Collins for rebounds honors with nine.
The big reason, however, the Owls won this game was hustle. Temple out-rebounded UMass, 45-27, and grabbed a season-high 28 offensive boards. On one possession in the second half, Temple grabbed eight offensive rebounds
The Owls now travel to Rhode Island for a Wednesday night game against the Rams
