Owls

Temple lost an offensive mind the same day it gained an offensive standout. Romond Deloatch, a senior wideout from Phoebus High School in Hampton, Va., gave Temple an oral commitment Sunday afternoon. Hours later, the Owls announced that offensive coordinator Scot Loeffler had resigned to take the same position at Auburn. "Auburn is one of the special jobs and special places in college athletics, with a tremendous amount of history and tradition," Loeffler, 37, said in a news release issued by Auburn.

When you spend most of your life towering above your peers, the only thing you grow to expect is people looking up to you. Nearly everyone has looked up to Lavoy Allen since the day he decided to pick up a basketball 5 years ago as a freshman at Pennsbury High School. They weren't looking up to him just because he stood more than 6 inches taller than everyone else. They were looking up to him with high expectations on the basketball court. "I think that year had to be the hardest time of my life.

It would take a mathematician to compute the odds against two teams from the same city reaching the Final Eight in National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball. Whatever the odds are, you can be sure they are astronomical. That's a full fourth of the best teams in the country coming from the same place. The odds against Temple and Villanova advancing all the way to the Final Four, of course, would be virtually unthinkable, if it weren't for some past history. By tomorrow - after surprising Villanova upsets Oklahoma and No. 1 Temple humbles Duke - the unthinkable will have occurred.

Temple probably didn't have any business being in the NCAA Tournament in the first place. The Owls start two freshmen on the back line, a sophomore point guard who didn't play the position in high school, two junior anchors who sat out the first season as Proposition 48 casualties. They don't have much depth and lost their only two seniors some 10 weeks ago to injury and academics. Yet, the seventh-seeded Owls (18-12) are in the second round after dumping 10th-seeded Missouri, 75-61, last night in a West Regional opener.

John Chaney was right when he said his Owls didn't deserve to be ranked seventh in the nation before they had played their first game. They probably should have been rated higher. And after last night's impressive 73-59 win over No. 3 Kansas at Allen Field House, they figure to be. As opening statements go, it was quite a mouthful. The Owls seemed to pick up right where they left off last March, when they made a magical run in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Elite Eight.

Apparently, Ohio has Temple's number. With heavy rain falling for most of the night at Lincoln Financial Field, the Owls faced Ohio in a game both squads needed to stay alive in the race for the Mid-American Conference East football title. And for the second straight year, the Bobcats ended the possibilities for the Owls. This time the final score was 31-23. The loss snapped Temple's four-game winning streak, and gave the visitors their seventh victory in a row. "They didn't beat themselves," Temple coach Al Golden said.

After Temple escaped Saturday with a 28-27 victory over Bowling Green at Lincoln Financial Field, Owls coach Al Golden was asked if he would have preferred for the game to go into overtime with an extra-point kick by the Falcons. "In that instance, I probably would have preferred hitting the reset button and going into overtime," Golden said with a chuckle. Instead, the Falcons lined up for a two-point conversion with no time remaining. Temple defensive back Marquise Liverpool broke up a pass from quarterback Matt Schilz to wide receiver Kamar Jordan, and the Owls survived.

Temple's basketball team will open its Atlantic 10 season on Jan. 12 at Charlotte, one of the three conference teams the Owls play twice. Their conference home opener is Jan. 16 against defending champion Xavier. Temple also plays Saint Joseph's and Fordham twice. The Hawks visit the Liacouras Center on Jan. 26, and host the Owls at the Palestra on March 2. Temple and La Salle meet once, in the March 8 finale at the Gola Arena. The Owls open at Tennessee on Nov. 9 before heading to the eight-team Puerto Rico Tip-Off Classic, where they'll open against Providence.

Temple University has fired former Owls star Paul Palmer as a sideline reporter on its radio broadcast team for Temple football games. Palmer, a Temple Hall of Famer who holds the Owls' rushing record with 4,895 career yards, was in his fourth season in the role. Palmer worked Temple's game at Toledo last week. Although WPHT-AM (1210) carries Owls games live, the university coordinates and produces the radio broadcasts. The details surrounding Palmer's departure were unknown last night.

Brian Hood has seen the type of magic Bensalem teammate Neil Chiaradio can perform with a hockey puck. "He can make other players look foolish," Hood said. "I've seen him do it so many times. He's such a good stickhandler that he can blow by people. He's great with the puck. " Chiaradio, a senior winger and center for the Owls, is the leading scorer in the Lower Bucks County Scholastic Hockey League (LBCSHL). The 5-foot-7, 150-pounder has scored 36 goals and dished out 33 assists.

Gavin White likes the idea of staying busy, especially at this time of year, when he can again take part in the Aberdeen Dad Vail Regatta wearing the Temple colors - this year for the 38th time as an Owls rower, assistant coach or head coach. White, who has led the Owls to 19 heavyweight eight titles at the Dad Vail, is in his 34th season as Temple's crew boss and still enjoys coaching. But health issues have raised the possibility that the 74th regatta, which begins Friday on the Schuylkill, could be his last as coach.

  After advancing to the Ivy League championship series for the first time since 2007, Penn (33-17) dropped a softball doubleheader, 1-0 and 5-2, to Harvard (33-13), falling to the defending champion Crimson in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday. In the opener, Quakers righthander Alexis Borden scattered three hits over six innings, but gave up a run in the bottom of the sixth when Harvard's Ashley Heritage walked, stole second, advanced to third on a single by Kasey Lange , then scored on a throwing error by Penn second sacker Samantha Erosa . Borden also started the second game and went seven inings, but gave up 5 runs on 12 hits.

Temple's basketball team prides itself on facing tough nonconference opponents. That's why the Owls will play national powers Kansas, Duke, and Syracuse next season. The Kansas game will be part of a home-and-home series. Temple will face the Jayhawks next season at Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kan. The teams will meet again during the 2014-15 season in Philadelphia, most likely at the Wells Fargo Center. Temple also is scheduled to play Duke next season at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. It will mark the third consecutive season the teams will square off. The Owls will face Syracuse in next season's Gotham Classic at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Temple's Travis Mahoney was named outstanding performer at the Atlantic Ten outdoor championship meet on Sunday at Massachusetts. Mahoney won the 5,000-meter run with a time of 14 minutes, 31.71 seconds. He had won the steeplechase title on Saturday. The Owls' Gabe Pickett won the triple jump with a mark of 15.22 meters. Temple freshman Margo Britton won gold medals in the discus and shot and was named woman rookie of the year. She put the shot 14.44 meters and threw the disc 162-3 to set a school record.

VESTAL, N.Y. - Former Temple star Mark Macon was fired Monday as the head basketball coach at Binghamton. Director of athletics Patrick Elliott made the announcement, saying the decision "comes after a thorough assessment of our current program and my expectations for the future. " Macon said he was "surprised" at the move. His contract went through February 2014. "In this job, you're hired to be fired," Macon said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.

Before last week's NFL draft, the league expanded the offseason roster by 10 to 90 positions. So teams were on the phones immediately after Saturday's seventh round speaking to players who had gone undrafted. Seven Temple Owls signed rookie free-agent contracts on Sunday, bringing the Owls' total NFL signees for 2012 to 10, tying for the largest class in school history. (Ten former Owls also inked NFL deals a year ago) Linebacker Stephen Johnson (Norristown) signed with New Orleans, and receiver Rod Streater (Burlington)

Tom Conley's RBI double in the 12th inning gave Massachusetts a 5-4 win over Temple on Sunday at Earl Lorden Field in Amherst, Mass. Freshman starter Patrick Peterson gave up just one earned run in 72/3 innings for the Owls (16-27, 4-11 Atlantic Ten) and left with a 4-2 lead. But a pair of errors let UMass tie the game in the ninth and the Minutemen (16-16, 9-6) went on to win. SOFTBALL: Paige Collings hit a two-run home run, but Drexel (21-24, 6-11 Colonial Athletic Association)

Temple tailback Bernard Pierce, tight end Evan Rodriguez, outside linebacker Tahir Whitehead, and converted outside linebacker Adrian Robinson figure to hear their names called this week in the NFL draft. "I'm looking at the mid rounds, from three to five is what I'm hearing," Rodriguez said of where he is projected to be drafted. Pierce likely will become the first Owl selected. The 6-foot, 218-pounder, who decided to forgo his senior season to enter the draft, received a third-round grade from the NFL Draft Advisory Committee in January.

Bensalem's offense sputtered on a brisk Tuesday afternoon, but the right arm of Zach Hizer kept the Owls afloat en route to a 5-1 win at Council Rock South in a Suburban One League National Conference baseball game. The Owls (9-1 overall, 6-1 league) recorded just one hit, but it came during their four-run second inning. Bensalem failed even to get another runner on base until the seventh inning. But thanks to Hizer, and some fancy glove work, that was enough. "That's the way we've been all year," Bensalem coach Rick Lee said.

The Temple men's rowing team took a pair of gold medals Sunday in the Knecht Cup on Camden County's Cooper River. The Owls won the varsity 8 plus coxswain and the frosh/novice four-plus. The varsity boat won in 5 minutes, 48 seconds, beating Drexel, St. Joseph's, and La Salle. The crew was coxswain Donald Norris (Father Judge High), stroke Jimmy Barr, Aaron Heyde, Michael Mirabella (Absegami), Brian Reehill (Holy Spirit), Djordje Vilimanovic, Perry Cox, Kevin Nally (Upper Merion)