Temple University Athletics
Special Night for Temple Seniors
3.1.12 | Men's Basketball
PHILADELPHIA -- A couple of years ago, this is where it might have ended for the Temple Owls: the final home game of the season -- the crossroads by which seniors became graduates, juniors became the team's leaders, rookies became veterans and the workload of the current season faded out into the preparations for next.
But thankfully, not this season, and by all means, not these Owls. As regular season A-10 champions, they still have the A-10 tournament in Atlantic City, where they've clinched the top seed. And then, of course, they'll venture into the NCAA tournament.
It's strange, isn't it, to think of basketball as a microcosm, a fraction of life? It begins and it ends, and somewhere in the fluid middle -- in growing up -- there are a series of ups and downs, of successes and failures that shape you as a group, only to spit you out into the world of March to fend for yourself.
But that's what basketball has been to these four guys, who, over the course of the past four seasons, have matured into reliably solid basketball players. That's not to say that that it has been an easy road. Each has encountered at least one obstacle in his time in the cherry and white.
Ramone Moore, the 6-4 Southern High product, struggled to adjust to the collegiate workload and redshirted his freshman year to ease the transition.
For Micheal Eric, it was a lingering patella fracture that shortened his junior and senior seasons.
The Argentinean native Juan Fernandez had no more than a few days to adjust to a new team, culture, language and city when he arrived in December of 2008.
And finally, for Jake Godino, who started every game throughout his four-year high school career at Delaware County Christian School, it was adjusting to seeing a handful of minutes in just 14 games.
But these setbacks were ultimately minor road bumps in the growing-up process, in the wake of which these four young men have left an indelible mark on Temple University's basketball program.
In tonight's 90-88 overtime thriller at the Liacouras Center, the Owls snatched their 100th win over the course of the past four seasons from the UMass Minutemen -- four seasons that have included back-to-back A-10 tournament championships in 2009 and 2010. This year's senior class touts an incredible 48-4 record on its homecourt, marking the team's fourth straight 10-win season at the Liacouras Center, where they end this season 10-1.
As each senior was guided down the makeshift aisle at halfcourt in the minutes leading up to tonight's tipoff, the atmosphere wavered between that of celebratory happiness and that of thoughtful reflection. It was hard to distinguish where one emotion began and the other ended.
The inability to distinguish one from the other is so indicative of this group -- that's the way it has been since the dribbling of basketball commenced earlier this fall: team first, individual second.
In addition to their accomplishments as a group, each leaves behind a legacy of his own.
Fernandez became the seventh player to reach 400 assists, currently ranks eighth on the all-time three-point list with 200 career treys, is second all-time in career three-point percentage and is the 48th player to score 1,000 career points.
Also a member of the 1,000 career point club, Moore was named to the All-Tournament team at the 5-Hour Energy Puerto Rico Tip-Off Tournament, named the A-10's Sixth Man of the Year for the 2009-2010 season and was one of only three Temple players to score double-figures in his first three collegiate games.
Eric tops the squad in rebounding (8.5 rpg) and blocks (2.0 bpg). He went on to match his career-high with 19 points in tonight's contest.
Walk-on Jake Godino, consistently the first Owl to take the court for the pre-game shootaround, was able to score a scholarship for the Spring 2012 semester -- his final season with the Owls.
It was hard for head coach Fran Dunphy, who greeted each player and their escorts at center court, to control his emotions as the seniors embraced for the final time on the hardwood of the Liacouras Center.
“I'm not a big proponent of Senior Night,” he said after the game. “It's difficult for me. It's hard. Where these guys have been and the ride these guys have been on is remarkable. I couldn't be happier with this group and I'm hoping they nurture and mentor the next group along.”
It's not goodbye just yet -- there is still plenty of basketball to play for the 2011-2012 Temple Owls -- but tonight's moment of reflection shed light on a group of young men who have engrained themselves firmly in more than the statistical history of Temple basketball.
Now, they'll spread their wings out and fly into the hurricane that is the post-season and March Madness to finish writing the end of their stories.
by Kami Mattioli, Owlsports.com columnist
