Hope soars, then slips away from Temple fans

Adrenaline pounded through a packed Mitten Hall on the Temple University campus Saturday night, as half-way across the country the Owls' men's basketball team kept fighting, pushing into double overtime against regional second-seed San Diego State University.

But with 19 seconds left, San Diego State took a seven-point lead, and then it was all over. Drained and disappointed - heads down, faces flushed, throats sore - fans started quickly slipping out onto North Broad Street, their dream of making it to March Madness' Sweet 16 round for the first time in 10 years over.

"We had it if we would've played our game," said a frustrated Lindsey Bittner, a Temple junior. "We just couldn't capitalize."

The festivities had started in high style, if low head count, at 4 p.m. A few dozen people watched the Temple women's team advance to the second round of the NCAA tournament with a victory over Arizona State, 63-45.

But it was as the women's game wrapped up just before 6 p.m. that crowds of students poured into the large hall, where 50 boxes of pizza, 100 hot dogs, and 12 dozen doughnuts awaited.

The hungry college students stood in line for their munchies, then settled into the folding chairs that had been assembled to accommodate about 500. Most of the chairs were filled throughout the game - though toward the finish, it was standing-room only as people rushed in to catch the final seconds.

As the men's game began, some cheerleaders got the crowd fired up, tossing T-shirts and waving their pom-poms in the air.

And when Temple scored the first points of the game, cheers erupted. The hollering was pretty constant until San Diego State took a 10-point lead in the first half and emotions simmered down. But with a minute and a half left in the first half, Temple started closing the gap and the cheering grew louder again.

As the second half rolled out an intense game of catch-up, the crowd became ever more animated, yelling and standing up at every point Temple scored.

Luke Butler, who graduated in May, came back to watch the game with friends who are still in school. His face was Temple red from all the yelling and jumping he did. The experience beat watching the game at "a bar with a bunch of alumni I don't know," he said.

"This is the most important game since any of us have been students," Butler said.

And when it was over, he broke down into tears.

"It's the end. It's finality. This sucks," he said.

The last time Temple made it to the Sweet 16 round was in 2001. The last four years, it qualified for the NCAA tourney but lost in the first round.

Alyssa Furukawa, a junior, had gone with friends to Florida the last two years, only to see her team play and lose. As she nervously shook her hands and kept bobbing up and down Saturday night, she said she could not afford a trip to Tucson but was hoping go for the next round.

"I [was] gonna say, 'Dad, please, birthday present - send me to Anaheim,' " said Furakawa, born March 30.

After the game, she sobbed, hugging the green blow-up cactus she had bought as a substitute for not going to Tucson.

"This wasn't a fluke, they are good," she said about losing to San Diego State.

Scott Walcoff, Temple's assistant athletic director, was among those who watched victory slip away at Mitten Hall.

Turnout for the viewing party was great, Walcoff said, "especially for a Saturday."

Some older students did trickle out of the hall in the second half, to finish watching the game at the bars.

The ones that stayed, though, did not need beers to stay spirited.

With 50.2 seconds left, Temple tied things up, 54-54. Fans leaped from their seats all at once, chanting, "Let's go Temple, let's go Temple, let's go!"

When regulation play ended, sending the game into overtime, energy pulsated through Mitten Hall. The crowd that had been a bit doubtful mid-game had become exuberant and ecstatic.

"It's a great game," said freshman Arthur Bedzigui. "I didn't think it would be this close."

Said junior Josh Garcia, "Certainly, it was a thrilling night to see them not only go into one overtime, but two overtimes.

"Just to break that first-round losing streak . . . made me proud to be an Owl."