The kids may have had no idea of what was on the line for La Salle on the opening day of the A-10 tournament. The Explorers needed a victory to extend the head coaching career of Fran Dunphy, who announced Feb. 20 he would step down after the season.
Dunphy’s three-year stint with the Explorers will last at least one more day. No. 14 seed La Salle took over the game with an 8-0 run in the final minutes and beat No. 11 Massachusetts 78-71.
“Dunph does everything for us,” La Salle guard Corey McKeithan said. “We’re going to go out there and exhaust all our energy for him, the same way he exhausts his energy for us.”
Dunphy, 76, spent the majority of his coaching career at Penn and Temple. He has a career record of 625-379.
“Dunph has given his all to the game,” forward Mac Etienne said. “He’s a big-time coach. It’s only right we give our all for him.”
La Salle (14-18) will play No. 6 seed Saint Joseph’s (20-11) at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. The Dayton Flyers, who beat both teams at UD Arena in the regular season, will play the winner in the quarterfinals at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
La Salle and Saint Joseph’s, located six miles apart in Philadelphia, will play for the fourth time this season. They faced each other in the Big 5 Classic in December and then twice in A-10 games. The Hawks won the first two games. La Salle then beat Saint Joseph’s 81-74 on March 8.
“The first time, they beat us up pretty good,” Dunphy said. “The second time, I thought we were in pretty good shape, then we didn’t do a good job late in the game. The third time, we played well throughout. They made their run and we stemmed the tide.”
La Salle announced Tuesday that Darris Nichols, who has spent the last four seasons at Radford, will succeed Dunphy.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
Early upset: No. 15 seed Fordham beat No. 10 Rhode Island 88-71 in the first round Wednesday, avenging an 86-67 loss at Rhode Island in the final game of the regular season four days earlier.
Fordham became the first lowest-seeded team to win a game in the tournament since No. 14 La Salle beat No. 11 Duquesne 88-73 in 2016.
Rhode Island’s third season under coach Archie Miller, who led Dayton to four straight NCAA tournament appearances from 2014-17, ended the same way the previous two ended — with a loss on the first day of the tournament.
Miller has lost his last five A-10 tournament games. That streak includes two games in his Dayton tenure: a semifinal loss to Saint Joseph’s in 2016; and a quarterfinal loss to Davidson in 2017. Dayton was the No. 1 seed in both of those losses.
Rhode Island, the No. 10 seed this season, has finished 9-22, 12-20 and 18-13 in Miller’s three seasons.
Injury news: As of Tuesday, Dayton forward Isaac Jack had not returned to practice, Grant said. Jack, who averages 3.1 points in 8.3 minutes per game, missed the last five games of the regular season after undergoing an appendectomy.
“It’s still day to day,” Grant said. “I think he goes back to the doctor (Wednesday) or Thursday, and then he’ll be reevaluated.”
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