Here’s how TBT helped former Temple hoops aide Dean Demopolous fuel his basketball ‘obsession’

Demopolous, who spent 17 years as an assistant at Temple under the legendary John Chaney, made his TBT head coaching debut this summer.

Dean Demopolous, head coach of TBT's Takeover BC, coached alongside famed Temple coach John Chaney for close to two decades.Read moreIsabella Marley / IsabellaMarley

by Ben Istvan

Published July 31, 2024, 1:19 p.m. ET

The Basketball Tournament has no shortage of players and coaches with connections to Philadelphia, but Dean Demopolous may have the longest-standing one of them all.

Demopolous, who spent 17 years as an assistant at Temple under the legendary John Chaney, made his TBT debut this summer. He helped the Owls to 16 NCAA Tournament appearances from 1983 to 2000, and when the representatives for Takeover BC offered him a chance to coach in a 64-team, single-elimination tournament, he was thrilled.

“The guys did a really good job of putting it together. … I enjoyed the hell out of it,” Demopolous told The Inquirer earlier this week.

Helped by a heavy contingent of former mid-major standouts, Demopolous led Takeover BC to the quarterfinals in entertaining fashion. The team poured in 91, 88, and 88 points in its first three games before being eliminated on Monday by Carmen’s Crew, a team of Ohio State alumni. Demopolous, an Upper Darby High graduate, came up one game short of a homecoming as the TBT semifinals are once again headed to Drexel’s Daskalaskis Athletic Center, but his love for the sport made his involvement well worth it.

“I’m always interested in working on my craft. … When somebody calls and they’re interested in helping me do that, I’m really interested in doing it,” Demopolous said. “The competition is something that, as you go in the business of basketball, you miss.”

His experience at TBT added to a diverse coaching resumé. After graduating from West Chester University in 1977, Demopolous stayed in the area and landed his first coaching gig at Kennett Square High School, where he doubled as a history teacher. That was followed by almost two decades at Temple, a year at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 13 years in the NBA, and later stints in Australia and China.

Takeover BC’s roster had players with professional experience in Mongolia, Tunisia, Uganda, Japan, and France, among other countries. For Demopolous, who calls diversity “the spice of life,” it was yet another opportunity to discover more about basketball and the cultures that surround it.

“I’ve always thought you’re put on this earth to learn,” he said. “It gives me an opportunity to learn and get better.”

Those are two things he also did plenty of while coaching alongside Chaney, who enlisted Demopolous as Temple’s top recruiter for much of his tenure. Demopolous helped bring program legends Eddie Jones and Aaron McKie to the school, and on the court, his partnership with Chaney guided Temple to five Atlantic 10 titles and four Elite Eight appearances.

“The stuff that I learned … there was no one that had it like Coach Chaney,” Demopolous said. “I understood him pretty well from the beginning, and I hadn’t understood anybody by that point. You’re lucky if that happens to you a couple [of] times in your life, where you understand something from the inside out.”

Following in Chaney’s footsteps, Demopolous is still coaching as he enters his 70s. The next step isn’t certain right now, but there will be one — his basketball “obsession” is only growing as the years go on.

“I’m lucky I’m 70 years old and still doing it,” Demopolous said. “... I feel very fortunate to be able to make a living at this for a long period of time. The longer it goes, the more you appreciate it.”