Here’s what we think we learned about the 2019-2020 Temple basketball team this summer.
With Labor Day having come and went, it’s time to put away the grills, get back to work, and say our tearful goodbyes to the shore until late May again dawns. We all had a welcomed break from the beautiful chaos of the college basketball world, but with tip about two months away, it’s time to shake off the cobwebs and start really digging into the 2019-2020 hoops season.
While May through early September are some of the quieter months on the college hardwood, they’re not without their intrigue and storylines. Temple basketball took advantage of their opportunity to schedule a preseason team trip this summer, squeezing in some extra preparation for the upcoming season with a three-game set in the Bahamas. The Owls went 3-0 against competition on the six-day trip in August, showing off a fresh style of play and putting up huge numbers in Aaron McKie’s first competitive games as a head coach.
There are a lot of reasons you shouldn’t put too much stock into preseason games of any sport at any level. The scores don’t matter, the lineup rotations are more balanced and experimental, and especially when it comes to division one college teams playing abroad, you can’t always be sure what the level of competition will look like. But with this look at the 2019-20 Owls comes the first opportunity to dissect things on and off of the stat sheet. And with no live streams available for Temple’s games last week, we have to trust the few highlights the team posted, break down the interviews with players and coaches, and, perhaps most of all, speculate wildly.
The Owls are going to score a lot of points
Barring something unforeseen, we can be all but assured that Temple is going to be pushing the tempo and playing high-scoring basketball. They scored a combined 280 points over the three games, playing at a pace described as “breakneck” and “super-fast”. Temple attempted 83 shot attempts in both of their first two games (albeit under a 24-second shot clock), something they haven’t done in the regular season in 20 years. In talking offensive game plan, McKie said things like “we tried to get out into transition as much as possible” and “play fast and attack”.
While Dunphy’s Owls were comfortable playing with scores in the 70’s, it’s safe to assume the McKie-era will feature a much more high-octane offense.
McKie might have more Chaney in him than we thought
When it was announced Aaron McKie was ascending to the position of Temple head coach, many Temple fans speculated about how much of the old coach, who McKie played under for four years, he would bring back to the Temple sidelines. He’s been quick to remind fans and the media that the college game has changed a lot since he played for Chaney in the early 90’s, and that he’d be influenced by many of the players and coaches he’s been around during his long and illustrious hoops career. He nixed the idea that Temple might return to using a match-up zone defense, a scheme Chaney often used while he was coaching Temple to five Elite 8s and the top spot in the AP Poll, and has credited several influences on his coaching style and the xs and os he plans on implementing.
But McKie sent a very Chaney-like message when he kept Alani Moore home from the Bahamas for breaking an undisclosed team rule. Discipline was at the forefront of Chaney’s coaching philosophy, and it seems like at least a little bit of that rubbed off on the new coach. Stripping a privilege like a team-bonding trip from a senior is serious, and McKie clearly sent an early message to his team by doing so.
The newcomers might have a pretty significant role
McKie was certainly going to use the preseason games as an opportunity to expose some of his freshmen and newcomers to the speed and intensity of the college game, but Temple’s freshmen were primary contributors throughout the three-game event. Temple’s lineup prominently featured Damian Dunn and Josh Pierre-Louis, and the freshmen guards were praised by the coach for their play on the trip.
Temple might have one of the best defensive and rebounding backcourts in the country
Temple already had one of the best all-around guards in the nation in rising-junior Nate Pierre-Louis, and even before his brother Josh stepped on campus, he was, by all accounts, just as intense on the defensive side of the ball. Temple was expecting the duo to lock down opposing guards, force turnovers, and help get the new-look Owls into transition, but Damian Dunn and junior transfer Monty Scott also made major impacts on the glass from the backcourt. The guard corps regularly led the charge on the boards in the Bahamas, and the six-foot-five Dunn averaged better than four offensive rebounds per forty minutes played.
But the Owls might not have a true point guard capable of starting
The strength of this Temple team will come from its tenacious and ultra-athletic backcourt, but it looks like there won’t be one player comfortable with doing a lion’s-share of the ball handling. The only true point guard on the team, senior Alani Moore, hasn’t had a major role on the court since his freshman season, and his occupancy of Aaron McKie’s doghouse doesn’t inspire faith that he’ll have the breakout year some hoped he could.
Quinton Rose might not be ready to handle and distribute the ball as much as he’d hoped, but he might be the best player in the Big 5
Both McKie and Rose talked about Q expanding his role this season by handling and distributing the ball more during his senior year. He’ll still be expected to lead the offensive effort with his elite-level athleticism, knack for highlight-reel plays and nose for the basket, but his stat sheet in the Bahamas doesn’t reflect a player ready to comfortably handle the ball in any situation. He notched seven assists and coughed up four turnovers over the three games in the Bahamas, and went almost twenty minutes in the third game without assisting on a single made basket.
But the positives of Rose’s stat line outweigh the apparent lack of success handling the ball; he shot the lights out from beyond the arc, only missed two free throws between the three games, and McKie commented about his level of poise on the trip, something the often turnover-prone Rose hasn’t always played with. If he plays the entire season like he did in the Bahamas, he’ll be an AAC and Big 5 player of the year candidate.
Temple might struggle on the boards, again
Guard play led the Owls to a third-place finish in the AAC and to a berth in the NCAA Tournament a season ago, which had to do extra lifting to account for the team’s weakness in the frontcourt (although the 2018-19 Owls are NIT-bound without this clutch play from senior center Ernest Aflakpui). The Owls lost their top rebounder from a season ago, and it seems like a difficult task for guys like JP Moorman, Justyn Hamilton, and Damion Moore to compete on the glass with the best frontcourts in the conference; it’s what McKie identified as his team’s biggest weakness coming out of the Bahamas games. The talented big men should be expected to cause fits for opposing defenses in the halfcourt and in transition, but Temple has some serious holes to plug on the glass.
But a major part of Temple’s rebounding woes from a season ago were due to technical mistakes and an inability to execute simple plays on the glass. If McKie and his staff can do what Dunphy’s couldn’t – specifically, get his bigs to properly box out and use their bodies to earn rebounds – rebounding should be less of a liability.
Temple might becoming more attractive to top talent
This is something we thought we learned when McKie first assumed the head coaching role and immediately secured commitments from Josh Pierre-Louis, Tai Strickland, and Jake Forrester, but more eyebrows were raised when it was announced top-fifty prospect Cliff Omoruyi would be taking an unofficial visit to Temple. With Kentucky already hot on his trail, landing Omoruyi seems like a long shot for the Owls (and he could just be making the visit as a gesture and to spend time with former teammate Josh Pierre-Louis, although that’s speculative), Temple fans should be happy that the program is getting some attention from that kind of talent.