Preview of Temple's Final Home Game

For a number of reasons (all of them good) I haven't been to a Temple home game since January 19. And what a home season it's been.
The Owls enter this season's final home game with an unblemished record at Liacouras Center. Today's opponent, LaSalle, is a 14-point underdog, yet coming off two impressive wins. In February 2009, LaSalle came into the Liacouras Center an 11-point underdog and, well, see below...
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"I can't believe what I've just seen" was the prevailing sentiment at the end of last night's game. From both Temple and LaSalle fans. And there were a bunch of infiltrators last night among us. A decent turnout of Explorer fans boosted the attendance at the Liacouras Center above 6000 for only the fourth time this year. On-street parking was at a minimum last night, so the parking garage became our last, and best , resort. Getting out in a timely fashion was not an issue, as we made a stop at the Draught Horse (on the ground floor of the Liacouras Center) for a post-game beverage.
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The Diamond Gems, with their dance number in the second-half, gave the best performance by a Temple student on the floor last night. I just don't know what to say about, or how to explain, last night's result. Certainly not what the oddsmakers had in mind - the Owls were favored by 11 points. It's not as if Temple played poorly (OK, it wasn't up to their standards but they weren't sloppy with the ball as they had more assists than turnovers) or that LaSalle had an exceptional game (Rodney Green did, but one has to expect that from LaSalle's best player). It just seems as if the Owls made poor choices in their shot selection, and as a result their field-goal percentage was below their season average, and Temple players went to the foul line for only 7 shots. Not much else to which I can point, and I'm not going to dig much deeper, because it will only serve as a reminder of last night's outcome. If you find this Chronicowls posting to be briefer than most, I trust you'll understand.
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Temple has to win Saturday at Dayton (4pm tip-off, game telecast locally by Comcast) to have any chance of an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. A bye into the Atlantic 10 tournament is still likely(awarded to top-four regular-season finishers), but probably two upset wins would be necessary to capture the conference tournament and thus secure an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. While 4 of Temple's 10 losses were to teams in the top 15 in RPI rankings, three have been to teams OUT of the top 100 (including last night). And Temple does not have a win over a team in the top 25. So, their resume (to use current bracketology-speak) for an at-large bid is light.
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Last home game of this season next Thursday night, against St. Joe's. Let's get a big turnout for that game, the Owls will benefit from our support.