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A look at some of Fran Dunphy’s biggest coaching wins

This is Dunphy's 13th and final season at Temple after he served as Penn's head coach for 17 years.

Fran Dunphy acknowledging the crowd in December before his final game at Villanova.
Fran Dunphy acknowledging the crowd in December before his final game at Villanova.Read more

Fran Dunphy is finishing his final year as Temple’s head coach. Next season, associate head coach Aaron McKie will take over.

Here are some of the biggest wins of Dunphy’s coaching career at Penn and Temple:

Jan. 30, 1993

Penn 64, Princeton 46. Princeton had dominated the Ivy League, winning four consecutive titles. But the changing of the guard came during this game in Dunphy’s fourth season. Both teams were 2-0 in the Ivy League, and they played before Penn’s first sellout at the Palestra since 1984. The Quakers didn’t disappoint the fans. It was the first of four straight seasons in which the Quakers won the Ivy League. They went 14-0 in the league in each of the first three of those seasons.

March 17, 1994

Penn 90, Nebraska 80. This was Dunphy’s first NCAA Tournament win, an East Regional opening-round game at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island. The Quakers were the No. 11 seed and became the first Ivy team in a decade to win an NCAA game. No. 6 seed Nebraska was the Big Eight tournament champ.

Dec. 13, 1994

Penn 62, Michigan 60. Penn upset the No. 25 Wolverines at Crisler Arena. The Quakers jumped to a 28-7 lead but had to hold off a later Wolverines run. Entering the game, Michigan had been in the Associated Press Top 25 for 59 straight weeks, since the 1990-91 season. Jerome Allen broke a 60-60 tie with a one-hander from 10 feet with 4.4 seconds remaining.

Jan. 29, 2002

Penn 81, La Salle 76 (OT). Penn had won its first three Big 5 games by a total of nine points and was looking to go 4-0 for the first time in 28 years. In addition, this was against Dunphy’s alma mater. La Salle entered with just an 8-11 record but showed fight by overcoming a 20-point deficit to force the overtime.

March 9, 2002

Penn 77, Yale 58. Penn had made a late-season charge, winning its last nine regular-season Ivy games to force a three-way tie for first place with Princeton and Yale. All three had 11-3 records, and after Yale beat Princeton in a one-game playoff, the Bulldogs faced Penn, with the winner earning an NCAA berth. (Penn had earned a first-round bye after going 3-1 combined against Princeton and Yale in the regular season.) In this play-in game, held at Lafayette, the Quakers scored the first eight points and never trailed.

March 15, 2008

Temple 69, St. Joseph’s 64. Dunphy earned his first NCAA Tournament berth with Temple, in his second season, by beating the rival Hawks in the Atlantic 10 championship game before a crowd of 10,116 at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall. It was Temple’s first NCAA berth since 2001. Temple improved to 21-12, capping a great turnaround after beginning the year 6-8.

Dec. 13, 2009

Temple 75, Villanova 65. With sophomore guard Juan Fernandez scoring a career-high 33 points, Temple upset the No. 3-ranked Wildcats at the Liacouras Center. It was only Villanova’s second loss in its last 23 Big 5 games.

March 17, 2011

Temple 66, Penn State 64. Fernandez hit a game-winning jumper with 0.4 seconds left in Temple’s first NCAA win under Dunphy and the school’s first since 2001. This NCAA West Regional game was played at the McKale Center in Tucson, Ariz. Temple then lost a 71-64, double-overtime affair to No. 2-seeded San Diego State, whose star, Kawhi Leonard, scored six of his 16 points in the second overtime.

Jan. 4, 2012

Temple 78, Duke 73. Temple took the subway to this game at the Wells Fargo Center and drove the No. 5-ranked Blue Devils out of the building. "Their kids know how to play,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said of Temple. “It’s typical [of them]. They have one of the best coaches in the United States. We obviously didn’t play very well.”

Dec. 22, 2012

Temple 83, Syracuse 79. This game, played at Madison Square Garden, was part of the Gotham Classic, but more important, Temple beat a Syracuse team that was ranked No. 3 nationally. Temple, which received 33 points from Khalif Wyatt, also snapped the Orange’s 52-game, regular-season, non-conference winning streak and handed them their first loss that season, after 10 wins.

March 22, 2013

Temple 76, North Carolina State 72. Temple was making its sixth straight NCAA Tournament appearance and used 31 points from Wyatt to win this opening NCAA East Regional game for both teams in Dayton, Ohio.

March 13, 2015

Temple 80, Memphis 75. This quarterfinal win in the American Athletic Conference Tournament at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn., was Dunphy’s 500th career victory.

Jan. 24, 2016

Temple 89, SMU 80. SMU was 18-0 and ranked No. 8 in the country, and the game was moved back a day because of bad weather. Larry Brown’s Mustangs were the nation’s last unbeaten team. Devin Coleman scored 23 points, hitting all eight of his field-goal attempts, including seven from three-point range, for a Temple team that would earn an NCAA berth that season.