It went down like buddah… with the Atlantic Ten championship game on the line Sunday in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, with Temple clinging to a one-point lead over the University of Richmond with 22 seconds left, a young man from my high school alma mater (Lower Merion) and my childhood hometown (Narberth, PA) stepped to the foul line. Temple senior Ryan Brooks drove a stake through the heart of Richmond’s desperate and scary final minutes comeback from ten points down by swishing two of the sweetest free throws any Narb has ever launched. Mr. Draper would have been proud.

Brooks’ silky foul shots under testicle-clamping pressure (I’m talking about mine) proved the difference in the 56-52 final score that gave Temple its threepeat in the A-Ten tourney championship and set up the showdown Friday afternoon against Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. 

Be afraid, Temple fans. Be very afraid.

If Villanova fans feel that the source of Temple fans’ antipathy toward the Wildcats is result of — as quoted in a letter published Wednesday by Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist John Gonzalez — “We (‘Nova fans) don’t tip them (Temple fans) enough when they mow our lawns,” just imagine what those Ivy League Cornell fans think.

Two words leap to mind. The first starts with the letter “F” and the second is “’em.”

Sure the Cornell campus in idylic Ithaca, NY has its gorgeous gorges, but so does Temple’s campus in the heart of North Philly. Except that our practical gorge has train tracks that run all the way to the Navy Yard. Sure Cornell’s 27-4 Ivy League Championship team has a Bigfoote weapon — seven-foot center Jeff Foote — known affectionately by Cornell fans as “the seven-foot-tall white guy.” The first seven-footer to play on the hallowed basketball courts of Temple’s Ryan Brooks’ hometown Narberth playground was a limber young lad from Overbrook High School named Wilton Chamberlain, “Dippy” for short.

I’m not saying that Cornell’s biggest win of the season over South Dakota, 71-65, shouldn’t be compared favorably with Temple’s biggest win of the season over Number Two tournament seed Villanova (mow this, Main Line frat boy) 75-65. Nor am I saying that Cornell’s worst loss of the season, to Penn by 15 points, should be compared in any way to Temple’s 15-point victory over the same Penn team.

All I’m saying is nothing you haven’t already read in the good book. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that’s the way to bet.

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