The scene was familiar. Fran Dunphy's basketball team had just finished a short scrimmage, and Dunphy, along with his players, was pounding out a set of push-ups like a second-stringer trying to win a starting job rather than the 57-year old head coach that he is.
The only differences were that the letters across his chest read "Temple Basketball" and that the setting was not the cozy confines of the Palestra, where he led the Penn program for 17 years, but the bright lights of the Liacouras Center. The program had changed, but the image Dunphy projected was just the same.
Sticking with his philosophy is not just how Dunphy has sought to make his transition across the Schuylkill easier for his new players - it is also how he has tried to make it as seamless as possible for himself. "We do have a phenomenal history here at Temple," he said - a product, no doubt, of the storied, if at times controversial, career of his predecessor, John Chaney.
But, he added, "Temple expected to win, and Penn expected to win."
And where the shift in allegiances is most pronounced - Dunphy now has athletic scholarships and an extensive network of contacts at his disposal - he approaches it the same way he has always has.
"I didn't have any of these preconceived notions about what it was going to be like," the Philadelphia lifer said of recruiting with his new financial and recognition advantages.
At the same time, Dunphy has not hesitated to put his own mark on the program right away. He and his coaching staff - assistants Dave Duke, Matt Langel and Shawn Trice, the same as his final year at Penn - selected seniors Dion Dacons and Dustin Salisbery to serve as captains, rather than leaving the decision to their fellow players.
It is one thing that Dunphy can control - and there are plenty that he cannot.
Behind the curve
Dunphy, like Glen Miller, the man who replaced him, got a late start on recruiting at his new institution for the Class of 2011.
But unlike Miller's move from Brown to Penn, Dunphy inherited a program that did not match his past recruiting styles. While Dunphy regularly recruited nationally and even internationally, Chaney was best known for seeking out local kids at lesser-known programs.
So far, Temple has landed just one commitment with its new staff - Matarvis Kee, a 6-foot-2, left-handed combo guard out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. According to owlscoop.com, a site that monitors Temple athletics, Lee became interested in the Owls only after Dunphy was hired as head coach there.
"Number one, there's longevity with coach Dunphy. . He knows a lot of people," Kee's high school coach told owlscoop.com about the reasons for Kee's decision.
Many of the other players who were said to be on the Owls' "watch list" when Dunphy took over have since committed elsewhere - to competing schools such as Saint Joseph's, Rutgers, Pittsburgh or even (in the case of 7-foot center Mike Williams) Kentucky.
And before Dunphy could even get his bearings with the Owls, he and his staff took a tough hit when Matt Shaw, a 6-8 power forward, backed out of his written commitment to play for Temple. After receiving permission to leave following Chaney's retirement, Shaw bolted for UNLV.
"I just wasn't familiar enough with coach Dunphy or his staff," the high school senior told owlscoop.com. "And since none of [Chaney's] staff was left, I didn't have any connection to them. I just had to do what was best for me."
Old habits die hard
But some things don't change so easily. Dunphy's squad playing Lafayette is one of them.
The Leopards, coached by former Penn assistant Fran O'Hanlon, were left off of the Quakers' schedule for the first time in over a decade this year. But Temple did make space for the Leopards, unsurprisingly.
The rest of Dunphy's non-conference slate features a matchup with Duke that will air on ESPN (just like Penn's last year) and a game against Cincinnati in Atlantic City, N.J.
As the football team moves to the Mid-American Conference in 2007, the basketball squad will play Buffalo, Western Michigan and Ball State in addition to NCAA Tournament participant Kent State.
Those games were not Dunphy's doing, but at this point, he'll take them.
