City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2023-24 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 6. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season click here.)

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When Diane Richardson took over the Temple women’s basketball program last spring, her intended style was clear. The former Towson head coach talked about speed, pace and tempo constantly. She wanted her Owls to fly up and down the court, using the term “equal-opportunity offense” frequently in interviews and press conferences. 

Reality had other ideas. 

Richardson’s first year on the Owls’ sideline was far from perfect, with multiple players departing mid-season on top of several injuries to key players, a transfer waiver denied for another. By the end of the season, they were down to eight available bodies, relying far too much on a couple players to carry the load, unable to play the type of ball Richardson had preached.

“It was tough last year, just having us eight,” fifth-year guard Aleah Nelson said. “It was challenging, I’m not going to lie. But that’s what we needed, we needed that, we needed to go through that adversity because [now] I feel like there’s nothing I can’t handle.”

There shouldn’t be any such issues this year. 

Seven new faces join eight holdovers, including five members of the rotation, to ensure that Temple has absolutely no worries about depth heading into the 2023-24 season. With Nelson and three other starters back in the fold, joined by two players who sat out last season, Richardson is hoping for a big jump up the American Athletic Conference standings following an 11-18 (6-10 AAC) season. 

The first practice of the fall, with twice as many healthy bodies as the end of last season, was culture shock indeed, of the best kind. Nelson, who played at least 32 minutes in every game last season and at least 35 minutes in all but three of the Owls’ contests, might have been happier than anybody else. 

“Oh my gosh, finally,” Nelson said as she recalled her reaction. “I was literally like, oh my gosh, we have a full roster, it’s so surreal because last year, we’d have to end practice early because we didn’t have the numbers. We couldn’t be running up and down for two hours and then expect to play [40 minutes].”

Nelson, a 5-foot-7 guard who averaged 15.4 ppg in her first season at Temple after following Richardson up from Towson, is expected to lead the Owls once again. She’s joined by returning guards Tiarra East (12.0 ppg, 5.9 rpg) and Tarriyona ‘T-Mac’ Gary (9.7 ppg, .370 3PT%), who give the Owls a nice scoring trio in the backcourt. Forward Denise Solis (2.5 ppg, 2.9 rpg), who started 10 games last year, and forward Ines Piper (23 starts, 3.9 ppg) are also back.

Two players who sat out last year who should contribute in a significant way this year are 6-1 forward Rayne Tucker and 5-9 point guard Kendall Currence. Currence, who averaged 15.9 ppg as a senior at Boston University two years ago, tore her ACL last preseason and took a redshirt, returning for her sixth collegiate season. Tucker, who also transferred from Towson to Temple after starting her college career at James Madison, was denied an eligibility waiver last season but will play her fifth and final year. 

Coming off the injury, it’s unclear exactly how productive Currence will be at the start of the season, though Richardson has the luxury of working her in slowly. Tucker, who tore her ACL in the spring of the 2020-21 season and played most of 2021-22 at less than 100%, is back at full health. She averaged 6.2 ppg and 5.4 rpg in her only year at Towson, but 10.3 ppg and 6.5 rpg in her sophomore year at James Madison before the injury.

“Last year didn’t go how we planned and I feel like we have something to prove this year,” Tucker said. “For ourselves, because we have so many seniors, [for] so many of us this is our last year, so we have something to prove for Coach Rich, ourselves, the university, just trying to bring Temple back to that winning culture.”

Five freshmen and two transfers round out the roster. The most impactful of those will be Vanderbilt transfer Desi Washington, a 5-10 wing guard, and freshman point guard Tristen Taylor, along with freshman post Jaleesa Molina, a 6-2 forward who drew praise from Richardson for her ability to run the floor.  

“Run” is once again a key word for the Owls, who can use that depth to push the tempo as much as they can in practice. Richardson sounds like she’s going to play a much deeper rotation than a year ago, getting players in and out, trying to get up and down the floor more times than anyone around. 

If so, she’s hoping to replicate her years at Towson, where she took a team that won nine games in its first season to the NCAA Tournament a year later.

“To come in and see the 15 and then to see that we have some speed was awesome,” Richardson said. “ Last year, as much as I’ve been a coach and wanted to play at pace, we just didn’t have the personnel [...] this year it’s been different, we’ve been pushing the ball at pace, we’ve got a lot of speedy people, even our post players have come in and are pretty fast.

“Now we’re back to the equal opportunity offense where everybody will score.”