The best and worst of this year’s Temple basketball team showed up in the Owls’ win over Memphis on Thursday
For every fan on and around North Broad that believes this 15-4 Temple Basketball team is what their record says it is, there’s another that thinks it’s all smoke and mirrors, and that the season is ready to come down on the Owls whenever the magic they’ve seem to endlessly produce finally wears off. And while I have my own opinions about this year’s Temple basketball squad, I don’t blame anyone for theirs. Both the best and the worst of this year’s Temple basketball team was on full display in Thursday night’s win at Liacouras Center against Memphis, earning another resume boosting win as well as plenty of more criticism.
But Thursday wasn’t the first time an apparently great Temple team handed the keys over to a sloppy, uninspired one in the middle of a game. Major point swings have been a feature of most of Temple’s games this year, from improbable comebacks against Davidson, UMass, and Wichita State, to blowing very comfortable leads against South Florida, Missouri, Georgia, East Carolina. While I certainly don’t question the talent level of this year’s Owls, playing a complete, 40-minute game is not something they’ve shown they can do this year.
And on Thursday, it was much the same story. Like in two of their opening games of the AAC season against South Florida and ECU, Temple came out in the first half looking like they deserved to be in the conversation for best team in the league; their defense was stifling, they couldn’t miss from behind the three-point arc, and they looked to be firing on all cylinders.
They opened up a 28-8 lead midway through the first half, and to the eye of the fan that hasn’t been watching Temple basketball this season, looked to be on their way to an easy victory, a blowout against a 4-1 Memphis team that came to Philly having won seven of its last eight. It looked like the ultimate statement after their huge let-down on Saturday against Penn, to run a talented Tigers team out of the gym in such dominant fashion.
But this is Temple basketball, and things are rarely that simple. Almost as soon as Shizz Alston hit the free throws that gave Temple that 20-point lead, their biggest lead over an opponent on the season, the dominant Temple team that had taken the floor checked out for the one that struggles to hit shots, effectively control the glass, and perhaps most detrimental, displays an almost shocking lack of basketball IQ.
But Temple wasn’t without its challenges, and although they shot themselves in the foot for much of the last thirty minutes of the game, the ejection of J.P. Moorman in the first half after a determination of a flagrant two foul against him wound up costing the Owls more than his valuable presence. Ernest Aflakpui and De’Vondre Perry found themselves in foul trouble in the first half, and with Damion Moore mostly ineffective off the bench, he only totaled nine minutes in the game. Fouls piled up for the Owls’ frontcourt; Aflakpui and Justyn Hamilton both fouled out in the second half after only 28 combined minutes, leaving Temple down three of its most effective bigs, and big rebounding presence Nate Pierre-Louis found himself in trouble with four of his own. Fran Dunphy would sub out his troubled or disqualified bigs with five-foot-ten Alani Moore in a number of situations, significantly downsizing a lineup already getting badly outscored in the paint.
In a few plays late in the game, two-guard Quinton Rose was the biggest player on the court for Temple. The size disadvantage, including the time spent for Temple’s bigs in foul trouble, showed on the score sheet, with Temple allowing 16 offensive rebounds to Memphis.
Temple also got as cold shooting in the last thirty minutes of the game as they were hot in the first ten; what started as a 7-9 three-point shooting effort early, five coming from Rose who had been shooting at or below 20% from deep all year, turned into a 10-27 mark by the end of the game.
But what got Temple into the most trouble, as it has so many times this year, were the major lapses of basketball IQ they displayed for much of the game. When managing the clock and taking smart shots with such a big lead should’ve been the priority for Dunphy’s squad, they rushed plays, tried to stack the lead by shooting contested threes early in the shot clock, and gave the ball away for too many easy transition buckets. Although a point of strategy for Fran Dunphy heading into the game was to keep the pace slow, he was unable to reign in his reckless offense. They gave far too many extra possessions to the Tigers, and Penny Hardwaway’s team was able to get themselves within two points with five and a half minutes left.
Thankfully, a fail-safe was there for the Owls in the form of Memphis being as willing to give the game away as Temple was. The Tigers were almost completely ineffective offensively outside of the paint (they shot 1-23 from three), took too long to start to get stops on the defensive end, and turned the ball over three times in the final minute and eighteen seconds to seal their loss.
But this game wasn’t just about the negatives for either team. Quinton Rose had a season high 26 points, and four other Owls joined him with double digits. De’Vondre Perry had one of his most effective outings of the season, filling in for some of the minutes vacated by Moorman’s absence, and Nate Pierre-Louis continues to blossom into one of the best all around backcourt players in the AAC.
Temple has plenty to clean up if they expect to challenge for an at-large bid. On Thursday night, both teams showed flashes of brilliance while seemingly doing their best to give the game away, but Temple did what they’ve done so many times this season; they found a way to win a close and wild basketball game. All things considered, a nine-point win against a decent Memphis team is something that should give the Owls even more confidence going into a huge game against Cincinnati this weekend.
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