But the chant soon rang hollow, if not laughable. Atlantic Ten champs? In November, this team couldn't even hold a 25-point halftime lead, crumbling against the pedestrian College of Charleston. The Owls needed some luck to beat Marist, and didn't have enough luck to beat Akron. They traveled to Miami to play Florida just after Christmas and the young Gators toyed with them, scoring 49 points in the second half.

Eventually, someone said of that chant, "Why are we saying this? We're nobody." The chant changed to "One, two, three, together!"

Amazingly, the Owls stayed together.

Now, it looks like a resurrection. They achieved that goal they stopped chanting about, earning the school's first bid to the NCAA tournament since 2001. They will face the same school that took them out in 2001, Michigan State, tomorrow in the first round of the NCAA South Regional in Denver.

It took some tunnel vision, especially to keep the Charleston collapse in Puerto Rico from defining Temple's season. Owls coach Fran Dunphy had experienced a similar debacle in his tenure at Penn, when his Quakers coughed up a 33-9 halftime lead and lost to Princeton at the Palestra in 1999.

"This was worse," Fran's brother, Dennis Dunphy, declared immediately after the Charleston game as the stunned Owls walked off the court as 79-76 losers. In fact, this game had more of an X-and-O nightmare attached. Charleston coach Bobby Cremins said he had put in a full-court press merely to wake up his own players, not thinking they could overcome a 50-25 halftime deficit.

As a staff, "we were scared," Owls assistant Matt Langel said when asked about the aftereffects. "Every game, we'd say, '[The opponents] don't pressure, but I'm sure they've seen the film. I'm sure they'll put in some kind of pressure.' You had concerns that we'll never be able to handle pressure."

There were refinements rather than wholesale changes. Dunphy made some personnel adjustments, getting the ball in senior Mark Tyndale's hands against pressure more, even though he is not a traditional point guard. In the first round in Puerto Rico, even before the Charleston game, Temple had let go of a 10-point lead with six minutes left in a loss to Providence.

The Owls needed a victory over Marist in the seventh-place game to salvage anything from Puerto Rico, and were lucky to get it, winning in overtime after trailing by eight in the last ten minutes.

But Temple learned from its early mistakes. Another big moment came Nov. 29, when senior Chris Clark hit a three-pointer on a feed from Tyndale with 1.9 seconds left to give Temple a 90-88 win over Ohio University. The Owls were 3-4 after Clark hit the shot, and it offered Dunphy another reason to keep him on the floor.

Dunphy believes the emergence of Clark was the No. 1 factor in Temple's revival. The St. Joseph's Prep graduate, generously listed at 5-foot-8, was always a steady voice of reason in the Owls' locker room. But to really be a leader, on-court contributions have to be part of the mix. Dunphy knew Clark was going to play a lot this season. But nobody expected him to lead the Owls in three-point shooting, making 42.2 percent of his shots.

Dunphy saw that as Clark's minutes increased, so did his contributions and his willingness to take charge. Clark did not start games, but he almost always finished them, and he had just eight turnovers in Temple's last 11 games.

Dunphy mentioned Clark's unseen contributions: "Like him taking four other guys [in practice] and running whatever the Fordham guys run or the Charlotte guys run or the Bonaventure guys run and never complaining about his minutes played or any of those things. There's great leadership with it. To say, 'I don't want to start' on senior night. Those little things are great moments to say, 'I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about all of you guys,' and I think the other guys pay attention to that."

Over spring break, a couple of starters who were always on time, doing the right thing, were late for a meeting. Dunphy was ready to go off, but Clark and Tyndale stepped up and explained that it wasn't the players' fault, there had been a miscommunication. "Let us handle it," they said. There was a players-only meeting. It got handled.

Temple finished the second in the A-10 with an 11-5 record; conference coaches and the media had picked them to finish ninth. After a defeat at Charlotte in the conference opener, the rest of Temple's A-10 schedule in January provided no obvious victories. Xavier. At St. Louis. St. Joseph's. At Fordham. Could Temple win any of these?

Dunphy and his players say a strong second half against Duke in a Jan. 9 loss at the Wachovia Center was the turning point in the season - it proved the Owls could play with a good team. Maybe, but Duke did not play inspired ball that night. Temple's game with Xavier a week later seemed a lot bigger. Beating the Musketeers by 19 points in Temple's second A-10 game was a crucial threshold for a lot of players. Center Sergio Olmos said that one gave him a huge jolt of confidence. He had only two points but grabbed 10 rebounds and had four blocks, learning not to go for every opposing pump-fake.

Going into the season, the biggest question mark had been Temple's defense, which was atrocious last season. As the A-10 season played out, Temple kept improving. A key point was the Jan. 26 loss to St. Joe's on a wide-open Pat Calathes three-pointer. Calathes was open because his man, Dionte Christmas, saw that Tyndale had left Hawks forward Rob Ferguson and ran to help when Ferguson got a kick-out pass. But Tyndale ran out there, too. Ferguson merely swung the ball over to Calathes, who knocked down the shot.

"It really is a trust issue," Langel said of good man-to-man defense. "Switching when it's necessary . . . not being afraid you're going to look bad if you get beat because you trust that your teammate's going to be there to help you, or you're going to be there to help him. I think that's been a big improvement - to me, it's as much off the court as on the court."

As the season wore on, Tyndale specialized in mano-a-mano battles against forwards who had to deal with his combination of quickness and toughness. He shut down A-10 player of the year Gary Forbes in a win over UMass, and gave Calathes a hard time in wins over St. Joe's at the Palestra and in the A-10 final.

A lot of people thought Christmas, the team's big scorer, had an off night in the A-10 semifinal against Charlotte. But it was only an off night with his shooting. Christmas had the most important task that night, keeping Charlotte shooter Leemire Goldwire from going off, as he had throughout the A-10 tournament. The 49ers scored only 45 points, so Christmas may have been the MVP of the night.

There is a laundry list of other tangibles and intangibles that came together. Tyndale raised his offensive game to the highest level of his career, tiring opponents with his explosiveness. Freshman forward Lavoy Allen arrived on campus ready to play, with good hands, nimble feet, and a high basketball IQ, and he got more aggressive by the end. Olmos suddenly became a player the Owls needed on the court, as opposed to the only available alternative.

Sophomore guard Ryan Brooks shook off a midseason shooting slump and made a slew of late-game jumpers. Dunphy especially valued how junior Semaj Inge did not pout when he lost his starting guard spot and his minutes fluctuated. Another sophomore, Luis Guzman, provided a decent combination of energy and steadiness when he hit the starting lineup, and he yells at Olmos in Spanish, telling him to get going: "Vamanos!"

Even as the Owls got their act together, their post-workout chant did not change. They stuck with "One, two, three, together!" - until they beat St. Joe's Saturday night in Atlantic City.

After this week's practices, on the court and in the weight room, they're going with the chant that reminds them of the journey as well as the destination: "One, two, three, A-10 champs!"

at 215-854-4489 or mjensen@phillynews.com.