City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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NORTH PHILADELPHIA — It felt like Temple couldn’t get the big stop for most of the evening.

Every time the Owls crept close to Ole Miss, the Rebels answered at the other end.

Finally, late in the game with a one-point advantage the stops kept coming for Temple. They just couldn’t finish them.

Temple forced four straight misses on potential go-ahead shots before Allen Flanigan forced his way to the line with nine seconds left following an offensive board. Flanigan scored a game-high 26 points and his free throws ended up as the game-winners in a 77-76 victory for unbeaten Ole Miss.

“I’m proud of our effort and our energy,” Temple first-year coach Adam Fisher said. “I thought our guys did a really good job, I know they got a couple offensive rebounds at the end, but I thought we did a really good job of trying to box out.”

Temple (3-2) trailed for almost the entirety of Wednesday’s game. Junior guard Hysier Miller, who scored a team-high 21 points, gave the Owls their first lead, 76-75, with 1:39 to play.

The Owls trailed by as many as 13 in the first half but trimmed the deficit to 38-33 before the break. Temple stayed within five despite letting Ole Miss (5-0) shoot 53.6 percent from the floor and 50 percent (5-for-10) from 3-point range.

Freshman Zion Stanford matched his season-high (set in the opener against UMES) with 14 points and Matteo Picarelli added another 14. Graduate forward Sam Hofman added 11 points and five assists. Hofman knocked in a pair of triples that closed the gap to one before Miller put his team ahead for the first — and only — time in the game.

“We competed, we played hard, I thought our energy was better there,” Fisher said. “We cleaned up some things from the first half.”

Stanford and junior guard Jordan Riley got their first starts as Owls with Jahlil White and Steve Settle III, who both started the team’s first four games, out with injuries. Fisher didn’t have an update on their status moving forward.

Riley totaled 10 points and seven rebounds in the start. Redshirt-freshman Quante Barry added six points and four rebounds in 24 minutes, which marked his most action this season. 

“They were high intensity on both ends of the floor, same thing with Quante,” Hofman said. “I think he played really hard. For his third college basketball game, he brought a lot of intensity and a lot of positive things for us.”

Miller missed a three the possession before Flanigan’s free throws that would have pushed the advantage to four. Barry was on the floor in the final seconds getting up a potential game-winner in the corner off a feed from Miller but it was no good.

“Hysier’s a phenomenal player. He had the trust of all of us,” Fisher said. “We had the timeout prior and we said once we get a stop, this is what we’re gonna run. They did a nice job. On the last possession, we told our guys hey we do this drill everyday. Here’s what we’re in. We ran it, we executed, and the shot just didn’t go in.”

Ole Miss grabbed three offensive rebounds in the final minute and a half to give itself a few extra chances to grab the lead. Rebels’ 7-5 senior forward Jamarion Sharp and the rest of the Ole Miss SEC-caliber front court provided a mismatch for the Owls, particularly without Settle but they handled their business down low except for the few balls they couldn’t corral late.

The Rebels had a 14-12 advantage in offensive rebounds, but Temple had a 17-13 advantage in second-chance points.

“They obviously outsized us and they’re super athletic,” Hofman said. “We definitely can clean some stuff up but I think overall we did a good job of boxing out and trying to get rebounds.”

Following a 3-0 start, Temple has dropped its last two to Columbia and Ole Miss. The Owls play La Salle next Wednesday for a chance to play in the inaugural Big 5 championship game Dec. 2.