The all-time great Temple and NBA player Guy Rodgers (who led the NBA in various seasons in assists per game) was the best player in this game, though Bradley's Bob Carney also played a bit in the NBA.
Bradley's 1954 and Temple's 1958 team went back and forth for most of the game, and the first time either team had a 3-point lead was when Temple's future NBA player Guy Rodgers came up with a steal and fed Bill Kennedy on the fast break (the 20-sided die is lowered by one number on a fast break after a steal by a guard or odd numbered die steal by a forward). That made it 41-38 Temple with 13:11 or 22 possessions remaining in the game.was still close until 5-minutes left when Temple led 56-51.
However, Kennedy hit only the third 3-pointer of the game for Temple, and in the process Bradley's one future NBA player Bob Carney fouled out and Kennedy completed the 4-point play to make i t60-51. While Carney had a subpart 6-point outing on offense, he would have been needed to have a chance of catching up with his highest level 11-16, 31 (all) steal range that had already resulted in four steals in the game.
While both teams were making their second Final Four in just a few years, Temple was the stronger team. They barely missed the title game with a 61-60 loss in the semifinal to the eventual champion Kentucky, and then won the consolation game to finish third place. Meanwhile Bradley's 1950 Final Four team appeared to have been much better, but like some very early teams there were almost no stats available to produce player cards so we went with the 1954 Final Four team. We are not clear why the 1954 squad was ranked No. 7 that year, because they were only 15-12 on the season and only played three ranked teams, but they received a bid nonetheless and then did make the run to the Final Four to back it up.
Temple moves from 72nd to 33rd in our Pomeroy-like all-time ratings, while Bradley dropped from 161st to 179th all-time. Temple will play #29 New Mexico State which moved from 84th to 29th with a blowout of Richmond, and the winner of that game will get the winner of UMass 1996 and Charlotte 1977 in one semifinal.
Keep in mind the original ratings are likely closer to how good the team is as they are based on how good the player cards are in the game. However, we could be off in underestimating or over overestimating teams and we purposely give more credit for any win then www.kenpom.com does despite using a very similar formula. (we basically used a version close to that used by www.kenpom.com but we give the winning team an extra 4 points credit and subtract 4 points from the loser for each game.
Of our 200 teams only four of the newest additions have not played and will be featured in our next two games as we make sure there are no glitches in the cards (sub as substitution errors we caught on Tulsa 2000). Those games are #98 Drake (1969) against #138 Nevada (2004) and #149 Buffalo (2019) vs. #192 Western Kentucky (1966).
| Bradley 1954 | Pts | 3pt | 2pt | FT | Att | Reb | Stl | Blk | Fl | Season Actual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| John Kent | 10 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 13.0 Pts, 4.1 Reb |
| Bob Carney | 6 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 16.2 Pts, 7.0 Reb-NBA |
| Eddie King | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 9.2 Pts, 4.3 Reb |
| Dick Estergard | 13 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 14.5 Pts, 12.3 Reb |
| Dick Petersen | 7 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6.3 Pts, 5.9 Reb |
| Lee O'Connell | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 3.2 Pts, 1.1 Reb |
| John Riley | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.0 Pts, 1.4 Reb |
| Harvey Babetch | 8 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6.1 Pts, 3.1 Reb |
| Jerry Hansen | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5.4 Pts, 2.9 Reb |
| Barney Kilcullen | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.4 Pts, 3.8 Reb |
| 13 Turnovers | 60 | 3 | 22 | 7 | 10 | 28 | 8 | 4 | 21 | |
| Temple 1958 | Pts | 3pt | 2pt | FT | Att | Reb | Stl | Blk | Fl | Season Actual |
| Guy Rodgers | 16 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 20.1 Pts, 6.6 Reb, 5.2 Ast-NBA |
| Bill Kennedy | 25 | 2 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 13.5 Pts, 3.3 Reb |
| Mel Brodsky | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 10.9 Pts, 7.5 Reb |
| Tink Van Patton | 10 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6.6 Pts, 10.5 Reb |
| Jay Norman | 9 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 8 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 13.0 Pts, 11.9 Reb |
| Joe Goldenberg | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1.4 Pts, 0.5 Reb |
| Jack Peepe | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1.1 Pts, 1.1 Reb |
| Ophie Franklin | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2.1 Pts, 2.5 Reb |
| Pete Goss | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1.3 Pts, 1.4 Reb |
| Dan Fleming | 4 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5.0 Pts, 4.3 Reb |
| 18 Turnovers | 72 | 3 | 23 | 17 | 19 | 39 | 6 | 4 | 17 |
