Philly.com Citizen Blogger Kris Gochenour writes:
Sweet fancy moses, I hope Dunph can do that. Oh, and Jeff Green might be the player of the year in the Big East, but it was still a walk to top all walks. Worse than the Patrick Ewing 5 step.
Penn fan Will Weiss, who might not be out of gas money anymore now that the season's over, writes:
I hope Dunphy can do it. I think he will in time. My only reservation is that the A-10 can no longer attract the five-star players that Big East schools can land, the exceptions being good recruits that turn into potential all-americans once in college (e.g. Jameer Nelson and even Christmas).
Well first, I should amend my previous remarks to add that I hope Temple fans don't expect Dunphy to get that far in three years. What Thompson has done is exceptional for just about any level. But Dunphy can recruit, and he knows all the coaches (and a lot of the kids) at the top high school programs in this area.
Carolina will always be Carolina, and some kids will want to go out to Arizona to play just because it's far from home, but I have no doubt that Dunphy will be able to get some of the top local talent to come to North Broad Street.
Related to that, I think Will sort of contradicted himself. To Nelson and Christmas add Darrin Govens, Mark Tyndale, Jawan Carter, Ahmad Nivins and Rodney Green. For starters. Across the A-10 as a whole, add Drew Lavender, Maureece Rice, Justin Cage, Stephane Lasme and Rashaun Freeman. And remember that Ohio State's Thad Matta came to Columbus from Xavier.
Players will go to A-10 schools if they want to play for the coaches there. Dunphy can make the sale to get kids to come play for him, and once he's got them he can get them to run his system on the floor. Yes, Temple's defense this season was not up to the level that we're used to from Dunphy's teams, but that had a lot to do with Temple's lack of size against the good big men in the A-10 this year.
And about that travel: Yes, it was. But if you look at where the refs are, the two at that end of the floor couldn't have seen his feet moving because he was surrounded by Vanderbilt players. It certainly wasn't five steps.
