For the first time since 2001 when they reached the elite eight, the Temple Owls will play in the NCAA tournament. They got the bid by beating the St. Joseph’s Hawks 69-64 in the conference championship game. The Atlantic 10 Conference title hasn’t belonged to the boys from North Broad Street for seven years when they last went to the big dance.

It was a tough run for the Owls who are no stranger to close contests. Three of the team’s last five regular season games were decided by five points or less. While Temple students stormed the court of Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, the team did have some things to be wary about.

First of all the team struggled from the line. Mark Tyndale, the hero of last night’s win over Charlotte had only eight points and was a paltry six for ten from the stripe.

The biggest bright spot for Temple was Dionte Christmas who had 22 points and seemed invincible beyond the arc. He seemed to have switched places with Mark Tyndale who was huge last night, scoring 20 points and 15 rebounds, but almost invisible offensively tonight. That means that last night must have been Christmas Eve since Dionte had only six points. Tonight was a different story.

Ryan Brooks added 15 points to the effort as he worked hard for his shots and was a perfect five for five from the line. A great sign of the future for the Owls was freshman Lavoy Allen who was mighty impressive in his 28 minutes of action pulling down rebounds and knowing when to take the shot and when to dish it off to a more experienced teammate.

The Owls will now celebrate before watching the TVs closely tomorrow night to find out who they will face in their first NCAA tournament game in seven years.