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Owls Hoping For Deep Run In American Tourney

By Ed Benkin

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Temple appears to be on the NCAA Tournament bubble as selection Sunday approaches.  The Owls are paying little attention these days.

The Owls' focus is on the American Conference Tournament, where Temple will play in quarterfinal action on Friday. The Owls will take on Memphis at 2pm and will likely need at least one tournament victory to keep their NCAA hopes alive.  Winning three games over the weekend will guarantee a spot in the Big Dance for Temple, but Coach Fran Dunphy isn't looking ahead in a conference which appears to be up for grabs this weekend.

"We're just thinking about winning one in a row," said Dunphy.  "If we can get that done, we'll feel good and we'll move on to the next assignment.  Everybody's in the same boat.  The two teams that are going to be in the finals on Sunday are going to have to play three games in a row.  There may be someone that arrives on Sunday where it might be their fourth game."

The Owls won't have to worry about a fourth game since they received a first-round bye.  However, a tough test awaits Temple in the quarterfinals.  It will be a rematch with Memphis after Temple picked up a victory against the Tigers this season on a last-second shot.

"I think they're really a good team," Dunphy said.  "I think there's a reason why we're closely matched in the seedings, because we're closely matched as far as how we play.  The game at Memphis came down to the last shot."

The Owls will get a break when they face the Tigers on Friday.  The leading scorer for Memphis is Austin Nichols, who is out for the weekend with an ankle injury.  While Dunphy has tremendous respect for the Tigers forward, he doesn't believe it will make Friday's game any easier.

"I think Nichols is a tremendous player," said Dunphy.  But they come off the bench with two pretty good guys.  That's going to make them just as formidable.  We're just going to have to do a really good job."

There will be plenty of pressure on the Owls this weekend.  An opening-round loss could spell the end for the team's NCAA Tournament hopes, but Guard Will Cummings says the team has already been through a stretch of pressure-packed games in recent weeks.

"There's not any more pressure than when we were playing Memphis the first time," Cummings said.  That was a change in our season when we came back and won that.  All of our games since then have had pressure."

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