Temple Basketball: Fran Dunphy’s tenure couldn’t have ended in a more fitting manner

After a career filled with postseason disappointments, Fran Dunphy crashes in March with Temple basketball one more time.

Fran’s Temple basketball teams had a way of making you believe every year. It didn’t matter how consistently his teams managed to under perform, it didn’t matter how many heartbreaking losses Temple suffered, it didn’t matter how many times his teams looked completely overwhelmed and under-prepared in the biggest games it played, you still believed this year would be different. It had to be. His teams were too talented to fall as flat as they always did. A breakthrough was always coming. You could feel it.

But, it never did. It didn’t come in 2015 after beating #10 Kansas in December; it didn’t come in 2016 after winning the AAC regular season title; it didn’t come in 2017 after sweeping ranked Florida State and West Virginia in the Preseason NIT; it didn’t come last year after Fran himself claimed to have his deepest ever team.

It didn’t come when Temple lost its only NCAA Tournament game in that span before Tuesday’s game against Belmont in 2016. It didn’t come when Temple had a chance to clinch its first Big 5 title in seven years against Penn in December. It didn’t come when Dunphy’s team didn’t show up on their home floor against Houston a season ago, knowing it was a game they needed to keep alive even the faintest hope of an at-large selection; they lost that one by 21 after being down 15-0 to start the game. And no, it didn’t come this year, going one-and-done in the AAC and NCAA tournaments.

There was no more fitting way for Fran’s career to come to an end than the way it did, for Temple to crash out of two tournaments without a single victory after heading into the postseason with high hopes and expectations. Because, quite frankly, that’s what Fran’s teams did; they lost in big games. They couldn’t get up for big moments. Fran’s career will likely come to an end with an astounding 3-17 record in the NCAA Tournament, perhaps one of the worst marks all time. Since winning the last of his three straight Atlantic 10 conference tournaments in 2010, he’s won four total conference games, none beyond the first round.

He may have been the nicest guy in the game, he might have been an amazing mentor to the young men that came through his programs, and he even put some really great teams on the floor. But when Fran’s teams needed to perform on the biggest of stages, when his teams were faced with the enormous pressure that comes with winning meaningful basketball games, they usually weren’t up for the task. And that certainly didn’t change last week.