Men's Basketball Opens Big 5 Play at Penn Wednesday

PHILADELPHIA - Temple men's basketball opens its Philadelphia Big 5 schedule Wednesday against Penn at The Palestra (7:00 pm/No TV/1210 AM WPHT). It will be the 12th meeting between Owls' head coach Fran Dunphy and first-year Quaker coach Steve Donahue. Good friends, Donahue was an assistant under Dunphy at Penn from 1990-2000 before leaving to become the head coach at Cornell.

Headlines

• Temple opens its 2015 Philadelphia Big 5 season at Penn, looking for its ninth straight win against the Quakers.

• The Owls had won back-to-back home games over Delaware and Fairleigh Dickinson before suffering a 76-60 loss at 2015 NCAA runner-up Wisconsin in their first true road game of the season.

• Temple's only other three losses this season have been to teams ranked in the Top 25. This season marked the first time in program history the Owls had faced three ranked teams in their first four games.

• Senior Quenton DeCosey is Temple's leading scorer this season with 13.7 points per game, and had scored in double figures in all six games to open the season before struggling offensively at Wisconsin.

• DeCosey is the 51st player in program history to score 1,000 points, surpassing the mark in a win vs. Minnesota on Nov. 19. He has now scored 1,083 career points.

• As a team, the Owls are second in the nation in fewest turnovers per game at 8.1. They have only reached double digits in turnovers twice and have recorded as few as five (vs. Delaware on 11/29).

• Senior Jaylen Bond notched his second double-double of the season and eighth of his career with a team-high 12 points to go with a team-best 10 rebounds at Wisconsin. Bond leads the team and ranks ninth in the American Athletic Conference with 7.4 rebounds per game.

• The Owls went 1-2 at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off before Thanksgiving, falling 74-68 to #16/16 Utah in the third-place game on Nov. 22. Temple won its opener against Minnesota, before narrowly falling to #22/20 Butler.

• Penn started the season 3-0, but has now lost three straight and stands at 4-4 overall. Senior center Darien Nelson-Henry leads Penn with 15.0 ppg and 8.5 rpg.

• Steve Donahue is in his first season as head coach of the Quakers, and served as an assistant coach at Penn under Fran Dunphy from 1990-2000. He then spent 10 years as head coach at Cornell, going 1-10 against Dunphy. Last season, Donahue twice served as a color analyst for Temple games on ESPN3.

Temple-Penn Series History

• Temple and Penn are meeting for the 70th time, with the Owls holding a 47-22 edge in the all-time series.

• The Owls have won the last eight meetings, including a 76-67 home victory last season. The teams last met at the Palestra in the 2013-14 season opener on Nov. 9, with Temple winning 83-78.

• Penn's last win in the series came back on Jan. 24, 2007, when the Quakers edged the Owls 76-74 at the Palestra.

• Temple head coach Fran Dunphy served as the head coach of the Quakers for 17 seasons (1989-2006), leading Penn to 10 Ivy League Championships, nine NCAA Tournaments and a 310-163 record over that span.

• Coach Dunphy is now 8-1 against his former team as head coach at Temple.

• Penn head coach Steve Donahue, in his first season, was an assistant coach at Penn under Dunphy from 1990-2000.

Dunphy and Donahue

Penn's Steve Donahue, in his first season as head coach of the Quakers, spent 10 years as Penn's assistant coach under Fran Dunphy from 1990-2000. After he left to become head coach at Cornell, the two met 11 times as head coaches, with Dunphy amassing a 10-1 record against his former assistant. His lone loss to Donahue came when fifth-seeded Temple was upset by 12th-seeded Cornell in the NCAA First Round in 2010.