Right, that's what I do.  use the fairly cool night to get my house down with an attic fan, then shut everything tight during the day, and use a little personal fan if needed.  Works great, and people think we have AC, which we never did.  But sure Alan.  In NO, that wouldn't work  As I remember, just hot and sticky ALL  the time.  So  I understood my thermo prof when he talked about heat death!  Been there.

But there are places in the US where the daily temp goes up and down like a yo-yo, and thermal mass can be used to great effect if you have the equivalent of a Maxwell demon working the in and out valves.  fortunately, yu can buy maxwell demons at radio shack these days.