Killings going up against ‘family’

UConn assistant spent eight years on Temple staff

STORRS >> About a decade ago, Dwayne Killings arrived at his first collegiate job on Fran Dunphy’s staff at Temple as a young, single man eager to get his foot in the door.

By the time he left Temple to join Kevin Ollie’s coaching staff at UConn last spring, Killings was married with a young family and an entirely different outlook on life.

“I had grown, and a lot of the things instilled in me as a man, as a father and as a coach, I got from Coach Dunphy and the Temple community,” Killings said ear-

lier this week. “I was never from Philly, but the Temple community — the Philadelphia community — embraced me.”

And so it will be emotional on Wednesday when Killings, in his first season as Ollie’s assistant, goes up against Dunphy and Temple at Gampel Pavilion (9 p.m., CBS Sports Network).

“They’re still family,” Killings said of the Owls. “I still text the kids, the coaches, Coach Dunphy, all my family and friends from Philadelphia. I’ll forever be a cheerleader for (Dunphy) and appreciative of the things he’s done for me. Except when we play them.”

Indeed, Wednesday will be a showdown between a pair of teams which have had their fair share of ups and downs this season and both very much need a win.

UConn (6-9, 1-3 AAC) is trying to build off the momentum of its best overall performance of the season, a 64-49 win over UCF on Sunday night.

“Hopefully, we can just continue to build on it and understand we don’t have time to waste, no games to waste — especially at home,” said coach Kevin Ollie. “These fans deserve it, because they’ve endured some pain with us this season. Hopefully, we can give this Gampel crowd something to cheer about.”

Meanwhile, Temple (107, 1-3 AAC) has had an upand-down season, with wins over a pair of top-10 teams (Florida State, West Virginia), but also losses to the likes of New Hampshire, UMass and George Washington. The Owls got off to an 0-3 start in league play, losing to arguably the three best teams (Cincinnati, at UCF and at SMU) before notching their first AAC win on Saturday over East Carolina.

“I know Fran has been through this throughout his career, and he’s always bounced back,” said Ollie. “His team’s getting better.”

Many of Temple’s core players were recruited by Killings: leading scorer Obi Enechionyia, Daniel Dingle, and talented freshmen Quinton Rose and Damion Moore and Trey Lowe, who’s out this season after being injured in a car accident.

Killings’s first job after graduating from Hampton University in 2003 was as a special assistant to the Charlotte Bobcats. After three years there, Killings left to join Dunphy’s staff at Temple on the advice of Bobcats president Ed Tapscott, who had worked with Dunphy at American University.

Killings spent three years as Temple’s assistant director of basketball operations, left to work for a couple of years in the NBA league office, took an assistant coaching job at Boston University for a year, then returned to Temple as Dunphy’s assistant for the next five years.

When Karl Hobbs left for the associate head coach job at Rutgers last spring, Ollie wooed Killings to join him on his staff at UConn. Leaving Temple wasn’t easy.

“It was really hard for me to come to terms with,” Killings recalled. “You spend eight years of your life somewhere, it’s like home. There’s a comfort sense, not only in your job but with the personalities and people. I look at Coach Dunphy as part of the family, he impacted me in so many ways.”

Dunphy had nothing but good words to say about Killings at AAC Media Day back in October.

“Dwayne is really a solid guy, hard-working, very personable,” said Dunphy. “Temple gave him an opportunity to get into college coaching, and it was a perfect marriage.”

Dunphy was understanding about Killings’ departure, making it easier for him.

“He said to me, ‘As your boss, I don’t want to lose you,’” Killings recalled, “’but as a friend, it’s something you really have to think about.’ He was awesome to me. I still see him out on the recruiting trails, we text here and there. I miss seeing him every day, that’s for sure.”Dunphy’s impression is still instilled in Killings.

“Coach Dunphy helped me figure out who I was,” said Killings. “He used to say, ‘Know who you are, be yourself every day.’ That was his message to the kids, and it bled into my life — to coach the kids the best way I can and affect my little corner of the world.”