City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
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After a triumphant victory on the road at Houston, the Temple Owls are in search of another marquee win to pad their tournament resume.

On the flip side, their opponent, the Tulsa Golden Hurricanes are in desperate need of a win to escape being left out of the tournament for the second consecutive season.

These two teams played once before this season at the Liacouras Center. Temple trailed by as many as 12 with less than 10 minutes to go in the game, but emerged to an 83-79 overtime victory.

Temple sits at 17-9 overall with an 11-3 mark in the AAC currently. While Sunday’s win over Houston could be what it takes to get the Owls dancing in March, a win over Tulsa would certainly help.

“Every one of these games down the stretch is crucial for multiple reasons,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy told reporters after the win over Houston.

Here are three keys for the Owls to complete the season sweep over Tulsa:

Stop the guards

Tulsa boasts one of the best backcourts in the nation with seniors James Woodard and Shaquille Harrison at the helm. They are joined by junior Pat Birt who completes the three-headed backcourt monster.

Woodard records 15.8 ppg along with 5.2 rpg and sits in fourth in scoring in the AAC. Harrison chimes in 15 ppg, 5.5 rpg and 4 apg of his own as the two are truly as hard to defend as they come. Birt, the team’s third leading scorer records 12.4 ppg.

The trio combined to score 60 of Tulsa’s 79 points in the first meeting between the two teams.

Stopping them, while easier said than done, is a must in order for the Owls to prevail.

Get Obi hot

It has been no secret, sophomore guard Obi Enechionyia has not fully lived up to his expected potential this season.

After the 6-foot-8 forward erupted for 25 points in a Dec. 13 loss to St. Joe’s, he would only score in the double digits once until Jan. 27. Since then he has finished with 13 or more points in seven of the Owls’ last eight games.

This included a career-high 26 points in Sunday’s win over Houston.

“Obi was terrific,” Dunphy said. “He made so many great shots for us. He got us off to a great start and hit another huge shot at the end. He’s changed his mind set and has been a bit more focused lately.”

Temple will need every bit of that renewed Enechionyia focus on Tuesday evening.

Don’t let Tulsa hang around

A big issue for the Owls this season has been emerging to double-digit leads, only to allow their opponent to claw back into the game.

Tulsa is so established through their veteran leadership that if you allow a team like that to hang around, they could steal that game from you.

The main key is that if it is a close game to keep the confidence high and don’t let it get out of hand. Tuesday night could decide if Temple is safe on the good side of the bubble, or if the team has work left to do. The same could be said about Tulsa. What a great time in college basketball.