NEW YORK - Temple guard Khalif Wyatt sat in the media room late Friday night, his voice a monotone, a blank stare on his face.
His team had just been eliminated in the Atlantic Ten tournament quarterfinals by Massachusetts for the second straight season. It was a game in which he scored 19 points but shot just 4 for 19 from the field.
"They did a good job defending me," Wyatt said. "I still had some good looks. Just couldn't put it in."
Wyatt and the Owls were beaten by the Minutemen, 79-74, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Before Friday, Temple (23-9) was considered a lock to make a sixth consecutive appearance in the NCAA tournament. A solid performance, the Owls hoped, would show they deserved a solid seed.
But after Friday's loss to UMass, the NCAA tournament committee must try to answer a tough question: Just how high a seed do they merit?
Temple, which had won its previous seven games, will get the answer Sunday evening when players and coaches gather to watch the NCAA tournamen's selection show.
"Yeah, it's up in the air," Wyatt said Friday. "It's nothing we can control for the next two days. Just going back to Philly, get some rest, and wait for Sunday, and hope that our name gets called."
The senior won't have to worry about being left out of the dance. Temple's RPI is 41. And its body of work is solid, including impressive wins over No. 19 Syracuse and No. 25 Virginia Commonwealth.
Before Saturday's games, ESPN college basketball analyst Joe Lunardi had the Owls as the No. 10 seed in the South on his Bracketology blog. He projected Temple would open the tournament against seventh-seeded Creighton in a second-round game in Kansas City. Meanwhile, CBS Sports bracketologist Jerry Palm, in Sunday's early morning hours, had the Owls as the No. 10 seed in the West. Palm predicted Temple would open vs. No. 7 seed Oregon in Salt Lake City.
"I can't sit here and say I'm confident," coach Fran Dunphy said Friday. "I think Khalif mentioned it, but we don't have any control at this point. We had our control today and we didn't do a very good job with it or a good enough job with it. We didn't do as good a job as UMass did, so we're at the mercy of the committee to see if we can get in the tournament, and we'll see what happens."
The Owls are holding out hope that Anthony Lee will be available for the NCAA tournament. The forward was rushed to a Brooklyn hospital in the early morning hours Saturday with concussion-like symptoms, according to sources.
The 6-foot-9 sophomore, who has been dealing with a sinus problem, had a severe headache leading up to Friday's game. Things only got worse when he took an elbow to the head on a hook shot in the first half. Lee became dizzy, nauseous, and light-headed. About 12:30 a.m., an hour after the game, he was rushed to a hospital in an ambulance. He was treated and released before spending Saturday at a Philadelphia hospital.
Contact Keith Pompey at kpompey@phillynews.com. Follow on Twitter @pompeysgridlock.
