City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It’s been a strange opening two weeks for Temple basketball, to be sure.

The Owls started their season off six days late, without so much as a warm-up game before jumping right into the Charleston Classic last Thursday. That didn’t throw Fran Dunphy’s group, as they won three games in a row to capture the tournament crown.

But then they had another week without hoops, going from last Sunday’s win over Clemson until a Big 5 opener at La Salle.

That uneven schedule might have had something to do with the uneven performance Temple displayed this Sunday, losing to La Salle 87-83 in a game it led by 11 with 11 minutes remaining.

“I was worried about the distance between last Sunday and this Sunday, I wanted us to play some games in there,” Dunphy said.

Temple (3-1) was playing a La Salle squad that had gotten twice as many games under its belt thus far, and was coming off an ugly 57-46 loss at the hands of No. 11 Miami (Fl.) on Wednesday.

Temple’s offense was clicking in a variety of ways, to be sure -- the Owls connected on 55.7 percent of their shots (34-of-61) and 44.4 percent from 3-point range (8-of-18), going 7-for-9 from the line.

But they also couldn’t stop La Salle from scoring. The Explorers had several stretches of five-plus possessions in a row with a bucket, making up for the fact they only scored 10 points in the game’s opening 10 minutes by scoring 77 in its next 30.

In the second half, La Salle hit 54.8 percent of its shots (17-of-31) and committed just one turnover, going 13-of-14 from the line as well.

“I thought we did a pretty good job the first 10 minutes, I thought we took care of our assignments,” Dunphy said. “After that, we weren’t good enough defensively.”

There also were the turnovers: 13 of them, compared to just four by La Salle, which turned into a 15-2 points advantage for the Explorers. Thirteen isn’t an unwieldy number in a vacuum, but it’s too many for a team that has ostensibly four point guards with at least a year of steady Division I experience under their belts, including a fifth-year senior (Josh Brown) and junior (Shizz Alston Jr.) leading the way.

If the Owls had won, they’d maintain quite a bit of momentum through a difficult non-league schedule as they prepare for the toughest American Athletic Conference yet.

Instead, they need to get back on track, and quickly.

Fortunately for Temple, the schedule oddities are over. Starting with a game against South Carolina in NYC on Thursday, the Owls won’t go any more than four days without a game until a six-day Christmas break between a trip to Georgia (Dec. 22) and the start of AAC play at home against Tulane (Dec. 28).

Included in the final seven non-con games before league play are two more Big 5 games (St. Joe’s and Villanova), four high-major opponents (USC, Wisconsin, Nova and Georgia) and a trip to George Washington, plus a visit from Drexel.

It’s a slate that’s certainly capable of building up an NCAA-worthy resumé, but that means winning a bunch of them first.

“Now we’ll start a flow,” Dunphy said, “and I think we’ll be better for it.”

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Rose’s turnovers issues costly again
There’s no denying that Quinton Rose is one of the most talented underclassmen in the Big 5. And the sophomore wing showed that again on Sunday, going for 21 points on 10-of-17 shooting, with seven rebounds as well.

But he also committed five turnovers, including one with 20 seconds to go down and his team down two points. On a drive down the lane, he was stripped of the ball, his second giveaway in the final 60 seconds.

That play didn’t solely determine Temple’s fate, though it helped seal it.

“I have to live with some of the things that he does, but there were a couple things that I wish he would not have done today,” Dunphy said. “But we’ll work on it and he’ll work on it, he’ll be better the next time.”

Turnovers have been a problem for Rose. As a freshman, he averaged about two per game in about 25 minutes, and it’s only gotten worse as a sophomore. After Sunday, he has 16 turnovers in four games, one-third of the Owls’ turnovers on the season.

The La Salle game was the second time he’d committed five turnovers in a single game this season.

With Brown, Alston and Alani Moore II all capable ball-handlers as well, Rose doesn’t need to be forcing the issue as much. But Dunphy said he won’t shy away from letting Rose take the ball in the final minute of Temple’s next close game.

“Not necessarily,” Dunphy said. “Q can make some plays, he’s a good basketball player and a good playmaker, but he’s got to take a little bit better care of the ball.”

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Enechionyia hits 1,000 points
Temple senior Obi Enechionyia came into the game with 998 career points for the Owls, and with a pair of free throws at the 10:24 mark of the first half, the 6-10 forward reached the 1,000-point mark. In doing so, Enechionyia became the 52nd player in program history to reach 1,000 points. He finished Sunday’s contest with 16 points and five rebounds.

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