He's moved across town, but the irrefutable laws of basketball still apply to Fran Dunphy.
If you don't score, you don't win, and if you don't make free throws, you don't win.
Much like he did several times last year at Penn, Dunphy learned that the hard way last night, as his Temple Owls fell 64-62 to Buffalo.
The loss dropped Temple to 0-2 and ruined Dunphy's first game on the Liacouras Center's home bench.
The Owls tried to come back from a nine-point deficit in the final three minutes, but Dustin Salisbery's last-second three-pointer was off the mark.
After Temple forced a turnover down by two with seven seconds left, Salisbery took the inbounds pass at the top of the three-point arc. He got a good look from two feet beyond the stripe, but it was not to be.
"It would have been a hell of a shot to make," Dunphy said.
Such a shot would not have been necessary were it not for some poor free-throw shooting, which Dunphy is plenty familiar with from last season's Quakers.
Temple shot 12-for-24 from the line, with Semaj Inge (1-for-7) and Ryan Brooks (0-for-4) the main culprits.
Compounding Temple's problems was the pressure defense of the Bulls, which forced the Owls into long stretches without field goals at critical times.
Buffalo went on a 18-5 run as it held Temple without a field goal for 9:25 in the middle of the first half. The Bulls turned a 53-all tie into their late nine-point lead when they held the Owls scoreless from the 6:30 mark to the 2:10 mark of the second half.
"There's a lot of little things we need to work on to improve," said Dunphy of his young team.
Dionte Christmas scored a team-high 23 points, including seven during Temple's furious comeback.
The Liacouras Center crowd gave Dunphy a nice ovation during the introductions, but never really got into the game until the end when Temple showed signs of what it is capable of this season.
"We should have played like that the whole game," Christmas said.
For Dunphy, it was certainly a home-opener to remember.
"I'm the head coach of Temple basketball; I'm a privileged guy," Dunphy said. "I'm following a legend, but I'm a privileged guy."
Now that the home opener is out of the way, Dunphy will have two more chances this week to get in the win column. Rutgers visits tomorrow, and Long Beach State comes to town Saturday.
