Temple coach applauds 11-year-old reporter after last-second loss
Any season-ending NCAA tournament loss is tough, but few could match the heartbreak Temple felt Friday when Iowa’s Adam Woodbury made a game-winning put-back at the buzzer to send the No. 7 seed into the second round. The Owls missed out on an all-Philadelphia matchup with Villanova in the next round and now go home in their first March Madness appearance since 2013. It’s also another disappointment for head coach Fran Dunphy, who has never escaped the first weekend in 16 career trips to the tournament.
However, Dunphy did not dwell on the rough finish in his post-game press conference. In fact, he even took the time to congratulate a very young reporter for a job well done.
Eleven-year-old Max Bonnstetter of New Jersey was on site as a correspondent for Sports Illustrated for Kids and got the opportunity to ask Dunphy a question. His professionalism apparently impressed the 67-year-old coach. Here’s a transcript of the exchange:
BONNSTETTER: Coach, it was a heartbreaking loss but your upperclassmen stepped up. How do you feel about them?
DUNPHY: I feel great about them. Max is your name? Just like I feel great about you, Max, because you’re a pretty cool guy. The fact that you would ask that question, the way you asked it. I love these guys. That’s the problem. You love them like crazy and now the seniors are gone. We won’t see much of them after this. They’ll work at, some of them, trying to be professional basketball players. Some of them will be professional in some other way. It hurts, to be honest with you.
That’s part of the problem of this situation. The abruptness of the ending is frightening, to be honest with you. But thank you for your question, Max.
(The Sporting News has video, as well.)
It was a very gracious gesture for Dunphy to honor Bonnstetter, especially given the circumstances of the loss. For that matter, Dunphy deserves credit for the more substantive portion of his answer — it’s a clear-eyed explanation of complicated emotions.
Incidentally, we may see more of young Max Bonnstetter in forthcoming tournaments. In addition to his SI for Kids gig, Max has a YouTube channel full of interviews and an active Twitter account.
Unfortunately, he’s a Duke fan. At least he has plenty of time to grow out of it.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
