The American Athletic Conference announced Fran Dunphy as its coach of the year on Thursday.
Dunphy led the Owls to a 20-10 regular season record and guided them to a 14-4 conference record. Temple finished as The American’s regular season champions after the team was picked to finish sixth by the conference’s coaches in the preseason.
“I am honored and humbled to be selected by my peers as the Coach of the Year in the American Athletic Conference,” Dunphy said in a university released statement. “This is really a programmatic award in that our coaching staff has worked hard all year long and, as it is a players’ game, they deserve much of the credit as well. This truly is a team honor.”
The coach also won the award last year after leading the Owls to records of 22-9 overall and 13-5 in the conference.
The Owls defeated three Top 25 teams this season, finishing with a 3-4 record against opponents ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll. One of those wins was an 89-80 victory against No. 8 Southern Methodist, giving the Mustangs their first loss of the season.
Temple also had a 7-2 record against the five teams immediately below it in the conference standings.
Southern Methodist redshirt-senior guard Nic Moore and Memphis freshman forward Dedric Lawson were the two other award winners on Thursday.
Moore, who was second in the conference in scoring at 16.1 points per game, won the conference’s player of the year. It was his second straight year winning the award. Moore and senior Quenton DeCosey were the only two players in The American to receive unanimous first team all-conference honors
Lawson won conference Rookie of the Year. The freshman averaged 15.1 points and 9.2 rebounds. He had 13 points and 11 rebounds last week against Temple.
Owen McCue can be reached at owen.mccue@temple.edu or on Twitter @Owen_McCue
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