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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Owls hitting stride in NIT

NEW YORK – Temple’s season could have ended in mid-March with the Owls still sagging from their NCAA tournament snub.

Playing three days after the selection committee made them the first team left out of the field, they came out sluggish in their NIT opener and trailed with just over 11 minutes left.

Then their senior point guard, Will Cummings, ensured his college career would last much longer than those 11 minutes. Ever since, Temple has looked sharp, and now the Owls are headed to Madison Square Garden for today’s NIT semifinals.

The news on Selection Sunday was “devastating,” Owls coach Fran Dunphy recalled. Turning that devastation to motivation to excel in the NIT isn’t as simple as it sounds.

“Before that kid (Cummings) decided to go crazy, we were on that edge,” Dunphy said. “I think everybody’s on that edge. You don’t really know where you are.”

Stanford and Old Dominion meet in the second semifinal.

Old Dominion’s coach, Jeff Jones, was the first person to win the NIT both as a player and head coach (at Virginia). When Jones ran the point on the 1980 NIT championship team, one of the Cavaliers’ assistants was Miami coach Jim Larranaga. But before this week, Larranaga, a Bronx native who played in Madison Square Garden for Providence, had never walked the sideline in the arena as a head coach.