City of Basketball Love

By Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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PHILADELPHIA—Temple women’s first-year coach Diane Richardson got a chance to experience a lot of firsts on Saturday afternoon against visiting Georgetown at the Liacouras Center.

Richardson saw her team take a lead for the first time this season. She got a chance to experience her team going into halftime with a lead. She got a chance to see her team take a double-digit lead for the first time. And she got a chance to see many of the things that she’s implemented begin to work.

Above all, she experienced her first victory as head coach of the Owls, 78-61, over Georgetown behind a balanced attack, beginning with a game-high 19 points from senior guard Aleah Nelson, while sophomore guard Tiarra East added 14, junior guard Tarriyonna Gary 13 and sophomore guard Jasha Clinton 12.

“I think it was a total team win, we have the best staff, everybody just poured in,” Richardson said. “We did the scouting and the players believed in the scouting and it was really good, because they’re quizzed on the scout as well.

“It was a really great team effort, it felt good to win at Liacouras and it felt good as a team victory for all of them meshing together, just getting here late and we put the team together late. They all played for each other. That was really, really special for me.”

Richardson liked how her team was locked in to her running style. Georgetown tried to slow the pace, but it couldn’t stop Clinton or Nelson.

The Hoyas tried a zone against the Owls, who converted 27 of 62 shots (44%) and 8 of 25 (32%) from three-point range.

“They recognized that and read the defense,” Richardson said. “Georgetown was going to try and slow us down with the pace, and they did that with the zone, but we just kept going.”

Richardson calls her offense an “equal-opportunity offense,” where she encourages everyone to score.

Temple opened the season on Nov. 7 with a 67-49 loss at Princeton, where the Owls never led and shot 18 of 62 (29 %) for the game, and scant 1 of 20 (5 %) from three-point range. Against Princeton, six players scored, with only Clinton and East reaching double figures.

With the Georgetown victory, Richardson now has a template to work from.

“I think that first game was an anomaly,” Richardson said. “We usually shoot threes better than that. We went back in (against Georgetown) confident again in our threes. We didn’t hit as many as we wanted to, but we still continued to shoot.

“In the equal-opportunity offense, everybody is expected to score. You see our offense and how we run it. Everybody scored, if you look at the score sheet (nine different players scored, four in double figures). We’re looking for the extra person.”

What stirred the offense was Clinton’s explosive drives. She and Nelson worked well off each other, each finishing with a game-high six assists.

“Personally, when I attack, I like to say I’m looking for everybody,” Clinton said.  

Added Nelson, “I think it makes us harder to guard, because when Jasha is driving, she can drive or has the kickout. Everyone on defense has to be aware and has to be ready, because like coach Rich says, everybody is scoring.

“Me and Jasha have a great vision of the court, so if she is driving, the help comes, that means you can have a kickout three with Gary, myself, Jalynn (Holmes) and so on. It makes us hard to guard when we’re doing our thing.”

Temple went into halftime up, 33-29, thanks to a 7-0 run that snapped a 19-19 tie, punctuated by an East driving layup with 4:52 left in the half.

That was it.

Temple never trailed again.

The closest the Hoyas came was early in the third quarter, 33-32, but the Owls closed the quarter on a 24-8 burst, and a Gary three-pointer gave the Owls their largest lead, 60-40, at the outset of the fourth quarter.

“It was really good to win here (at Liacouras Center) and we proved this is our house as well,” Richardson said. “Liacouras is a great place to play. It’s comfortable. It makes us feel good to play here. We showed it today.”

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here