Belmont vs. Temple: 2019 NCAA Tournament game preview, TV schedule
Two of the last four teams face in Belmont and Temple. Who has the edge in this matchup of 11 seeds?
TV schedule: Tuesday, March 19, 9:10 pm ET (approx) truTV
Arena: University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio
In the offseason, head coach Fran Dunphy announced that after 13 seasons with Temple Basketball and nearly 30 overall in college basketball, he’ll be retiring. It was imperative for the Owls 23-9 (13-5) to make the NCAA Tournament in his final year. And by the slimmest of margins, they made the NCAA Tournament as one of the last four teams in.
Temple is led by All-AAC performer Shizz Alston, who averages nearly 20 ppg and 5.0 apg. The senior guard is on a scoring tear, going for 20+ in his last eight games, including a career-high 34 points in a win at UConn. The other two primary scorers for the Owls are Quentin Rose and Nate Pierre-Louis, who combine to average nearly 30 ppg and 10 rpg on the season. No one else on the team produces more than six points a night, so off nights by any of these three leads Temple to trouble.
Their opponents come from the Ohio Valley in Belmont 26-5 (16-2), who was sweating for a week after losing to Murray State in the OVC Tournament title game. But in the end, the Bruins had a good enough resume to warrant an at-large bid. To be clear though, this is a team who can win multiple games In the NCAA Tournament.
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While Ja Morant has been the Ohio Valley player who has received all the attention, Dylan Windler has been just as great. The senior forward is averaging 21.4 ppg and 10.6 rpg on the season and leads the nation’s second-best scoring offense (87.4 ppg). Fellow senior guard Kevin McClain (16.3 ppg) and 6’11 freshman Nick Muszynski (14.9 ppg) also are high volume scorers that can cause damage to their opponents when the attention is on Windler.
While the main question will be whether or not Temple can keep up with Belmont offensively, the Bruins defense is also a concern. They’ve given up 100 points at Green Bay in a loss and doesn’t force a lot of turnovers. But they did play very well against Purdue and UCLA in the non-conference so this experienced team won’t be intimidated by the quick and athletic Owls.
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Belmont is one of the best mid-majors in the country and head coach Rick Byrd is one of the most underrated leaders in all of college basketball. But it’s March and the dream stories manage to go a little longer than usual. That’ll be the case of Coach Dunphy who’ll have one more game in his career after moving on to the Round of 64.