The Temple Owls men's basketball team represents

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then calle ...

in the sport of

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

. The Owls compete in

National Collegiate Athletic Association The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

(NCAA) Division I as a member of the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

(The American). They play their home games in the

Liacouras Center The Liacouras Center is a 10,000-seat multi-purpose venue which opened in 1997 and was originally named "''The Apollo of Temple''". The arena was renamed in 2000 for Temple University President, Peter J. Liacouras. It is part of a $107 mill ...

on the university's main campus in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, and are currently led by head coach

Aaron Mckie Aaron Fitzgerald McKie (born October 2, 1972) is an American basketball coach and former professional basketball player who played 14 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is currently the head coach for his alma mater Temple Un ...

. Temple is the fifth-most winningest NCAA Division I men's college basketball program of all time, with 1,903 wins at the end of the 2017–18 season. Although they have reached the NCAA Tournament over thirty times, they are one of nine programs with that many appearances to have not won the Tournament and one of four to have never reached the National Championship Game. On March 7, 2012, the

Temple Owls The Temple Owls are the athletic teams that represent Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The current athletic director is Arthur Johnson. The owl has been the symbol and mascot for Temple University since its founding in the 1 ...

announced that they would be rejoining the

Big East Conference The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

for all sports in 2013 after 31 years in the Atlantic 10 Conference, with the Owls football team membership beginning in the 2012 season. However, before Temple became an all-sports member of the Big East, the conference split along football lines. The league's non- FBS football schools formed a new Big East in 2013, while Temple and the remaining football members remained in the old conference, but renamed it the American Athletic Conference.

History

The Temple Owls became the first National Invitation Tournament (NIT) champions in 1938, one year before the inception of the NCAA Tournament. The NIT was broadly recognized as a National Championship awarding tournament for a number of years, beginning with the 1938 National Championship by Temple. Additionally, the Owls were retroactively recognized by the

Premo-Porretta Power Poll The Premo-Porretta Power Poll is a retroactive end-of-year ranking for American college basketball teams competing in the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons. The Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of informa ...

and the Helms Athletic Foundation as the national champion for the 1937–38 season. Temple again won the NIT championship in 1969. During the 1950s, the Temple basketball team made two NCAA Final Four appearances in ( 1956,

1958 Events January * January 1 – The European Economic Community (EEC) comes into being. * January 3 – The West Indies Federation is formed. * January 4 ** Edmund Hillary's Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition completes the third ...

) under head coach Harry Litwack. Litwack was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame after concluding a 21-year coaching career that included 373 wins. Head Coach John Chaney, also a Hall of Famer, won a total of 741 career games (312 losses) and took Temple to the NCAA tournament 17 times in 24 seasons with the Owls. His teams won the Atlantic 10 regular season championship eight times, while winning the A-10 Tournament six times. His 1987–88 Owls team entered the NCAA tournament ranked No. 1 in the country, but lost in the Elite Eight to

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...

. Chaney reached the Elite Eight on five occasions and was the consensus National Coach of the Year in 1988. On March 13, 2006, Chaney retired from coaching. On April 10, 2006, Penn head coach and La Salle alumnus Fran Dunphy was named the new head coach. Dunphy had coached the Quakers for 17 straight seasons prior to the move. After struggling his first year, the Owls won the A-10 Tournament for three consecutive years in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, 2009, and 2010. The Owls received bids to the NCAA Tournament for six straight years under Dunphy (2008–2013). However, the Owls only won a game in the Tournament twice during that time period. Since Temple joined the American Athletic Conference in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

, the Owls have struggled, making the NCAA Tournament only in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...

and

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

. After the 2018 season it was announced that former Owls standout and then-assistant coach Aaron McKie would take over for Dunphy in

. Players Mark Macon, Juan Ignacio Sanchez, Eddie Jones,

Lavoy Allen Lavoy Allen (born February 4, 1989) is an American retired professional basketball player. He was selected in the second round, 50th overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Allen is the son of a truck driver, and did not p ...

Aaron McKie Aaron Fitzgerald McKie (born October 2, 1972) is an American basketball coach and former professional basketball player who played 14 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is currently the head coach for his alma mater Temple Un ...

Tim Perry Timothy D. Perry (born June 4, 1965) is an American former basketball player. Following his college career with Temple he played professionally for 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association and Liga ACB. Playing career Perry played colle ...

and Mardy Collins are just a few who have gone on to play in the NBA.

Rivalries

As a member of the

Big 5 Big Five may refer to: Animals * the Big Five, large African wild animals said to be most difficult to hunt: lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and Cape buffalo * Big Five animals of the Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India: Indian rhinocero ...

, the five large colleges in Philadelphia, the Owls have long-standing rivalries with Villanova, Penn, Saint Joseph's, and La Salle. The Owls are tied with Villanova for the most Big 5 titles to date, with 27. However, while tied in overall titles, Villanova has more outright titles not shared by any other tying team. The Owls have not won an outright Big 5 title since the 2000–01 season. The Owls won their most recent Big 5 title in

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

, going 3–1 in Big 5 play and splitting the title with La Salle. During Big 5 games, the Temple student section unfurls long banners about the opposing team, which has been a Big 5 trademark for Temple. Other rivals include UMass,

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, and

UConn The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut, a village in the town of Mansfield. The primary 4,400-acre (17.8 km2) campus is in Storrs, approximately a half hour's drive from ...

. Temple is in the American Athletic Conference with

plays them regularly in the regular season. UConn left the AAC in

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in t ...

. When Temple was in the A-10, head coach John Chaney had a personal rivalry with UMass head coach John Calipari.

Awards and honors

Retired numbers

National Awards

All Americans

* Mike Bloom – 1938 * Bill Mlkvy –

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

Guy Rodgers Guy William Rodgers (September 1, 1935 – February 19, 2001) was an American professional basketball player born in Philadelphia. He spent twelve years (1958–1970) in the NBA, and was one of the league's best playmakers in the early to mid-19 ...

–

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year ...

* Bill Kennedy – 1960 * Terrence Stansbury –

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

* Nate Blackwell –

1987 File:1987 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsizes after leaving the Port of Zeebrugge in Belgium, killing 193; Northwest Airlines Flight 255 crashes after takeoff from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, ...

* Mark Macon –

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Bicenten ...

* Pepe Sanchez –

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

National Coach of the Year

* John Chaney – 1987, 1988

Conference awards

Atlantic 10 Conference (1982–2013)

*Atlantic 10 Player of the Year ** Terrence Stansbury – 1983–84 ** Granger Hall – 1984–85 ** Nate Blackwell – 1986–87 **

– 1987–88 ** Mark Macon – 1988–89 **

– 1992–93 ** Eddie Jones – 1993–94 ** Marc Jackson – 1996–97 ** Pepe Sanchez – 1999–00 ** Khalif Wyatt – 2012–13 *Atlantic 10 Sixth Man of the Year ** Quincy Wadley – 1998–99 ** Lynn Greer – 1999–00 ** Brian Polk – 2001–02 ** Ramone Moore – 2009–10 ** Khalif Wyatt – 2010–11 *Atlantic 10 Most Improved Player ** Dionte Christmas – 2006–07 ** Scootie Randall – 2010–11 *Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year ** John Chaney – 1983–84, 1984–85, 1986–87, 1987–88, 1999–00 ** Fran Dunphy – 2009–10, 2011–12

American Athletic Conference (2013–Present)

*American Athletic Conference Most Improved Player **Nate Pierre-Louis – 2019 *American Athletic Conference Coach of the Year ** Fran Dunphy – 2015, 2016

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

* Harry Litwack – 1976 * John Chaney – 2001 *

– 2014

Owls in pro basketball

NBA Drafted players

Postseason

NCAA tournament results

The Owls have appeared in the NCAA tournament 33 times. Their combined record is 33–33.

NIT results

The Owls have appeared in the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) 19 times. Their combined record is 23–17. They are two time NIT champions (1938, 1969).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Temple Owls Men's Basketball Basketball teams established in 1895 1895 establishments in Pennsylvania