03.17.12
by

Villanova: Never forgive, never forget

With Temple in the BE, Villanova  basketball now becomes as irrelevant as DePaul.

The definition of  charade is an absurd pretense intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance.
I’ve never seen a more apt word describing the press conference to introduce Temple as the newest Big East member a couple of weeks ago.
Don’t let Villanova being at the table confuse you.
The part of the press conference (really, too much) that promoted Villanova’s involvement in this was a complete charade.
And Temple should never forget that.

Villanova resident Andy Reid will be rooting for the Owls.

Villanova fought tooth and nail to keep Temple out of the Big East in football, basketball and hop-scotch (if the BE offered hop-scotch).
In early October, the Owls were all set to be introduced as a new member but, as Lenn Robbins of the New York Post reported, the “conference call deteriorated into ‘Nova bashing Temple” and the Wildcats were able to form a voting block of Big East Catholic schools (St. John’s, Georgetown, Seton Hall, Providence, DePaul) that denied Temple a spot at the Big East table.
According to our sources, Seton Hall and St. John’s decided to break away from that block a little over a month ago and the writing was on the wall. Villanova no longer had the votes to block Temple.
Villanova already had taken a huge public relations’ hit in the Philadelphia area over the last five months for blocking Temple and decided to show up at the press conference and call this its own idea.
Liars.
Although BOT trustees’ member Lewis Katz was effusive in his praise of Villanova, you could see at times the look of utter amazement on his face at some of the things coming out of the mouth of Villanova president, the Rev. Peter Donahue.

If I was Monangai (No. 26) ,I’d keep my head on a swivel 8/31

I like being in the Big East, but I’m not buying the charade.
Nor should any Temple person. Villanova fans took great pride at coming over to Owlscoop.com and delighting in the demise of the Temple basketball Owls and taking swipes at Fran Dunphy, a guy I consider a great coach, man and representative of Temple University. I’ve met Dunph only once and that was for a brief period of five seconds or so in the concourse of Lincoln Financial Field, but there is no bigger fan of the man and the coach out there than I am. Temple is blessed to have Fran Dunphy and Steve Addazio as coaches of its two flagship sports programs.
The loss to South Florida was no more his fault than it was Al Golden’s (and I’m pretty sure Al Golden had nothing to do with it). Dunphy can’t make Ramone Moore take it to the basket when Moore seemed totally disinterested to beat an overmatched defender. He can’t make Juan Fernandez shoot. He had nothing to do with Khalif Wyatt  being called for an ill-timed technical foul.
But Villanova’s days of delight are a precious few now.
“I want you to come out to (Lincoln Financial Field) and see us kick Villanova’s butt again,” said Katz, who came out of that press conference as a star in my mind.
Daz, consider that an order, not a request. The only knees the Owls should take in that game should be the post-game prayer, thankful for an 88-0 win.
When it comes to Villanova, never forgive and never forget.

9 thoughts on “Villanova: Never forgive, never forget”

  1. Mike,As usual, you hit the nail on the head. The reality is our basketball season ended several weeks again when we played at LaSalle. Our team changed then as our key players really seemed to check out and go through the motions. No coach is going to be able to motivate players that no longer want to play.Dunph is a class act and a great ambassador for TU and will continue to be.On the flip side, Villanova can gloat all they want today, because our future is very bright and they are very jealous. Marc F, Berlin, NJ

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  2. What took you so long?I thought there was way too much Villanova talk during 'OUR' big day, glad to see someone else say it.But I'll have to disagree with you on the whole Fran Dunphy not being responsible for what his players do on the court thing. If the coach isn't responsible who is?Now that my Owls are eliminated from the Tourny, it's back to, Counting down the days to Temple's first Big East title in football.

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  3. I'm sure Fran has told Khalif many times to tone down his on-court act with the officials and, except for last night, Leaf was pretty good. Not Fran's fault. Also, Ramone has been in witness protection since the A10 tournament. If I had his talent, I'd be taking it to the hole every time, drawing three defenders, and dishing off for the easy slam or 3. He seems totally disinterested. I think Fran just hoped the importance of the NCAAs would wake him up. It didn't and now Fran takes the fall. Not fair.

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  4. Last I checked discipline and maximizing the teams talent is on the coaches. If the players are to blame, the coaches HAVE to be as well, no excuses. I love the job Dunphy has done so far and the talent he has been able to procure, but when we get to the Big East I don't want us to be one of those all hype no substance teams that the Big East spits out on the regular. Step it up Dunphy!

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  5. I agree with dirt. When you have a failing on this many players parts it definitely comes back to the coach. I like Dunph as a person and think he's good regular season coach but he owns this team's performance. His record against the spread in the tourney is 1-9, the worst of any coach in the history of the tournament. That's just a fact. I'm excited for football but frankly I'm tired of Dunph and crew consistently coming up short and having people talk about now tough the draw was. It's the tourney its supposed to be tough and btw it used to be Temple who was the nightmare draw for teams in the tourney.

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  6. Not to make this a hoop blog, but Penn was nonscholarship so you can throw out those years.Three A10 tourney titles in four years and one A10 regular-season title can't be thrown out.I'm sure Dunph would have done things different in this game.I'm still scratching my head while he didn't go fullcourt zone press. When you have three athletic 6-4 guards, you cut down vision on the passing game with that kind of press and then you have a 6-11 human eraser like Eric back there if they break it.Not Dunphy's most shining momemt but, on the whole, he's done a great job at Temple.

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  7. Spring Practice…., AG recruited Coyer, shouldn't that give everyone cause for concern? And, Daz has gone two recruting classes without picking a HS QB? Daz likes Conner Reilly as much as he disliked Gerardi…, just don't see Coyer in the same class as the other BEs QBs from the top teams

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  8. since WVA left, the top team in the BE in terms of returning talent is Rutgers. RU played a true freshman last year, Gary Nova, for much of the season. He can't hold Chris Coyer's jocksstrap. I think CC will be if not the top QB in the BE next year, at least second team. Doesn't concern me at all that AG recruited him because Ohio State also recruited him. We'll be fine at QB. My concern is finding a backup QB and a backup RB.

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  9. 1) The post season failures rest squarely on Dunph for the reason Dirt brought up.Having non-scholarship players does not defend against being beaten ATS 90% of the time, as the teams baseline performance (or perception) is already factored in.2) (back to football) It will be much easier to pick up HS QBs when we actually give CC some serious attempts numbers

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