The coach sits there drained, a lion in winter at age 71, having squeezed every last drop of hope and potential from a bunch of green underclassmen once dismissed as hapless and helpless.
In the 34th game of a season that had practically been declared dead on arrival, John Chaney's inexhaustible Temple Owls (18-16) finally ran out of surprises in last night's NIT quarterfinals at the Liacouras Center.
"I told the team that they made a great season," said Chaney, whose overachieving team fell in overtime to Minnesota, 63-58. "They made an old man happy."
The game was just another in this team's coming of age -- a two-month stretch through the late winter that may very well come to define these Owls. Temple won 13 of their last 17, dramatically turning the program's fortunes and making for yet another exciting March on North Broad Street.
The Owls, who started the season 3-11, finished it 15-5. In marching to the Atlantic 10 championship game, they advanced to within a game of the NCAA Tournament. This week, they won three games en route to the NIT's round of eight.
But against the towering Golden Gophers -- a team boasting five players listed at 6-foot-8 or above -- the Owls were overmatched, though they were in the game until the final minute of overtime.
Decisive scores down the stretch by Michael Bauer and Rick Rickert proved the difference, as the Gophers opened a five-point lead and pulled away in the extra frame.
Minnesota capitalized on its significant size advantage. Though the team held only a slight edge in rebounding, it deposited 19 second-chance points to Temple's four.
"They must have gotten at least 18 or 19 extra shots off offensive rebounds," Chaney said. "They're just so big."
Rickert, the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2002, led the way for the Gophers. He finished the night with 15 points and a career-high 13 rebounds. It was his 23rd straight game scoring in double figures.
"I thought it was Rick's best game rebounding the ball in two years here," Minnesota coach Dan Monson said. "He really was working hard."
But Minnesota's balanced and resourceful attack, coupled with Temple's terrible shooting -- the Owls shot an abysmal 26.9 percent from the field -- ultimately doomed the Cherry and White.
For a while, it looked as if Temple might beat the odds yet again. As ever, its matchup zone defense created problems for an unfamiliar opponent, and the Golden Gophers failed to sustain momentum offensively.
"We had really tough matchup problems, to have to guard them man-to-man," Monson said. "We started the game trying to go man on misses, but we were in foul trouble right away. We couldn't match up with their perimeter people."
Junior Brian Polk who paced the Owls in the first half, sinking all four of his three-point attempts as Temple opened a 31-26 halftime lead.
The Gophers, who limped into the NIT after losing their last four Big Ten games and bowing out quietly in the first round of the conference tournament, had rattled off wins against Saint Louis and Hawaii before traveling to Philadelphia. Like Chaney's Owls, these Gophers are a work in progress.
Virtually all of the Owls had difficulty shooting the ball. Freshman Maurice Collins was 4-for-17 on the night. Alex Wesby, Chaney's lone senior, had an ignominious end to a stellar Temple career, scoring seven points on 2-for-10 shooting and missing all of his six attempts from beyond the arc.
Chaney, however, was very optimistic about the season and -- in Collins, Keith Butler and Antywane Robinson -- his young roll of talent.
"All in all, I'm very proud of them," Chaney said. "They turned a season that was a disaster into a promise for the future."
