With game in his hands, DeCosey delivers for Temple

Fran Dunphy's exact words in the last huddle, as Temple's coach remembered them later, were directed at Owls senior Quenton DeCosey: "I'm going to give you the ball, and you're going to win the game. Are you ready for that?"

The response, Dunphy said, was kind of a laugh from DeCosey, which Dunphy interpreted as: "What, are you kidding?"

"It's kind of like asking a 4.0 student how he's doing in school," Dunphy said later, after DeCosey had pulled off another A. "What are you asking me for?"

By the time the Temple senior crossed over between his legs for the fifth time, it was clear the game Saturday at the Liacouras Center, tied in final seconds, was going to stay in DeCosey's hands. It didn't matter that he had missed his previous two jumpers.

"I got him up in the air," DeCosey said of his Central Florida defender. "As soon as he came down, I rose up to take it."

The result of that pull-up 15-footer with 3.1 seconds left, a 63-61 victory, avoided a resumé-denting upset. DeCosey practically set up the scenario the day before, when he had said in an interview, "I think my confidence is at an all-time high, so it makes everything easier, I guess."

That answer was a little startling because although DeCosey leads Temple with 15.9 points a game, he had made just 8 of 34 shots in his three previous games.

"He's earned it," Dunphy said of why he called DeCosey's number. "He's been around a long time. He's as good a scorer as we have. . . . He has no fear. That's the other thing. He thinks he's going to make everything. I felt pretty confident he would at least get us a good look. If it wasn't him, he could dish to someone else. But he stepped up and made a great shot."

DeCosey had worked toward that moment. He studies tapes of Michael Jordan. ("That's like my main guy.") He looks at the footwork, how Jordan created his space, also his defensive work, which is a much-improved part of DeCosey's game. "You can find anything on YouTube," DeCosey mentioned.

He doesn't just study Jordan on the court. DeCosey likes to watch Jordan interviews, to get more clues to Jordan's mind-set.

His other favorite YouTube mentor is Houston's James Harden. DeCosey tries to incorporate Harden's dribble penetration moves, his isolation footwork - "Whenever I get at the top of the key, like 10 seconds left [on the shot clock], quick moves to try to get in the lane: a Euro step move in the lane, to avoid shot-blockers; a crossover to try and shake defenders; between-the-legs crossover."

DeCosey was saying this Friday morning, the day before his own between-the-legs crossover. When was the last time he had looked at Harden on YouTube?

"Last night," DeCosey said Friday.

If you see some Harden and a little Jordan in DeCosey's moves, throw in a sprinkle of Khalif Wyatt, who was making space for himself as a star Owls guard when DeCosey first got to Temple.

"The little pump fake move I use," DeCosey said of Wyatt's influence. "Also, just finding ways to use my body to shield defenders off. I definitely use that."

Asked about DeCosey's seeing the court so much better now than he did his first couple of seasons on North Broad, Dunphy said: "Oh yeah, no question," mentioning "the ultimate example" as a play at the end of the first Tulsa game Feb. 4. "He drove it in there, they were trying to foul him, but he had enough athleticism to not get fouled at that point, jumped up in the air - and I don't know how he saw Devin Coleman."

DeCosey's pass that night found Coleman in the corner, and Coleman's three-pointer sent that one into overtime, where the Owls found another by-the-seat-of-their-pants victory.

"Very few people could have made that play," Dunphy said of DeCosey's pass.

That probably includes DeCosey early in his time at Temple.

"It's very real that he's come a long way," Dunphy said. "You know what, I think he's much, much more unselfish at this point in time. I think he was looking for his own stuff early in his career. That's a young person's attitude sometimes. But I think he's come full circle. He has as much fun passing it as he does scoring it."

These days DeCosey usually sees all the options and typically weighs them properly. His confidence? Earned the hard way. To answer his coach's question, he seems ready for anything.

mjensen@phillynews.com

@jensenoffcampus