Big 5 notebook: Temple men trying to avoid history; St. Joe’s and ‘Nova women on the bubble

Last Thursday, Temple coach Adam Fisher did something he admitted was a bit unusual when his team was trailing Memphis by 18 at halftime.

Fisher, the Owls’ first-year men’s basketball coach, grabbed his laptop and showed the locker room what had happened in Memphis a few weeks earlier, when South Florida erased a 20-point deficit and topped the Tigers on their home court.

The message, according to Fisher: “This ain’t over, and if you think it’s over don’t come out of that locker room. Because we’re going to compete and play hard and get right back in this.”

Temple scored the first eight out of the break and eventually cut the Memphis lead to three. But there were too many mistakes — Temple committed seven turnovers in the final five minutes — during the winning minutes, and so an eighth consecutive game went into the loss column.

Losing is draining. It is infecting in many ways. It can, at times, make a locker room forget what it feels like to win. Late in that Memphis game, the Owls looked like what they were: a group of basketball players who hadn’t felt a win in a while.

Asked about that, and whether his team was lacking confidence late in games, Fisher turned to the allegory of the Stonecutter’s Credo.

“You keep hitting the rock and you keep hitting the rock and it’s not that one blow but it was the hundred before it,” Fisher said. “We’ve got to figure out how to get over the hump, and we know that. There [are] no moral victories for us. We’ve got to figure it out.”

The losing streak, after an 80-68 defeat at No. 24 Florida Atlantic, is now at 10 games. The Owls on Sunday will aim to avoid matching nearly 50-year-old infamy when they host the University of Texas at San Antonio at the Liacouras Center (2 p.m., ESPN+). A loss would match the program-worst 11-game losing streak endured by the 1975-76 Owls.

» READ MORE: Drexel’s win over Hofstra on Thursday could pay dividends in early March. Here’s why.

St. Joseph’s and Villanova might be bitter rivals, but right now they can commiserate with each other. Life on the NCAA Tournament bubble is brutal. Every game is essentially a postseason game.

Right now, both teams are controlling all they can control. St. Joe’s has rattled off 10 consecutive wins, the latest a 73-47 rout of Dayton. The Hawks’ only Atlantic 10 defeat is to first-place Richmond. Right now, that means ESPN’s Bracketology has Richmond in as the A-10 automatic qualifier and the Hawks fighting for an at-large bid.

As of Friday morning, ESPN’s Charlie Creme has St. Joe’s in the “first four out” portion of the NCAA Tournament bubble.

That’s where Villanova sits, too. The Wildcats have won three straight after losing at home to No. 15 Connecticut.

As of Friday morning, Villanova was 40th in the NCAA’s NET rankings, and St. Joe’s was 56th.

Up next for each team: Villanova hosts Butler on Saturday at 4 p.m., while St. Joe’s heads over to La Salle Sunday for a 2 p.m. contest.

» READ MORE: Maddy Siegrist has enjoyed ‘a little bit of everything’ in her offseason job at Villanova

Villanova’s men’s team continued its push for the NCAA Tournament with a 70-54 win Friday night at Georgetown. Drexel, which earned a much-needed home win Thursday over Hofstra, hosts Campbell on Saturday (2 p.m., FloSports). Also on Saturday, La Salle welcomes Massachusetts to Gola Arena (2 p.m., ESPN+), and St. Joe’s plays at Duquesne (2:30 p.m., USA Network). In the Ivy League, Penn lost to first-place Yale, 76-62, on Friday night and has Brown at the Palestra Saturday (6 p.m., ESPN+).

On the women’s side, Drexel lost at Towson, 51-48, in overtime on Friday night and returns to the Daskalakis Athletic Center for a game with rival Delaware on Sunday (2 p.m., FloSports). Penn won at Yale, 66-52, and will be at Brown on Saturday (5 p.m., ESPN+). Temple has the weekend off before playing Tulane on Monday (7 p.m. ESPN+) at the Liacouras Center.