NCAA Basketball: Top 25 NCAA Tournament cinderellas since 2000
By Adam Childs
21) 2001 Temple Owls, No. 11-seed
Record: 24-13, Elite Eight
Beat: (6) Texas Longhorns, (3) Florida Gators, (7) Penn State Nittany Lions
The Temple Owls would start the 2000-01 season 4-7 after suffering a seven-game losing streak that included losses to the Miami RedHawks and a Penn State Nittany Lions team they would see later in the year.
It didn’t get better, as the Owls sat at just 14-12 after a loss to the Saint Joseph’s Hawks on Feb. 13. With just four regular season games left and a conference tournament, it didn’t look like Temple would be able to make it to the NCAA Tournament.
The Owls would win their final four games of the season and sweep through the A-10 Tournament beating the Dayton Flyers, the George Washington Colonials and the UMass Minutemen. That gave them the automatic bid for the A-10 conference and a seven-game winning streak heading into the NCAA Tournament.
They kept up the great play, as they rolled through the Texas Longhorns by 14 and the Florida Gators by 21 before avenging their earlier season loss to Penn State, beating them by 12. Temple’s dream run would end in the Elite Eight, as the Michigan State Spartans would pull away and beat the Owls by nine.
Lynn Greer would lead the team in scoring at 18.2 points per game for the year, but he would score at least 19 points in each of their four tournament games. He averaged 20.5 points per game during Temple’s run.
This would be John Chaney last Temple team he took to the NCAA Tournament, and what a surprising run they went on. It was the third time the Owls went to the Elite Eight under Chaney and maybe the most magical run of the trio.
Had the Owls not won their conference tournament, they probably would not have made the NCAA Tournament. This was the classic case of a team getting hot at the right time and in turn, making a memorable run in the tournament.