City of Basketball Love

By Justin Procope (@1Procope)
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NORTH PHILADELPHIA — The Temple Owls are currently riding one of the most unique streaks in college basketball. 

Entering Wednesday night they were 7-0 when leading at halftime and 0-7 when trailing. In a Wednesday night clash on North Broad with American Athletic Conference foe East Carolina, that trend continued.

Despite leading for a large amount of the first half, the Owls fell behind at the break and never rallied in the second half in a 73-62 defeat. They’re now 0-8 when they fall behind after the first 20 minutes.

It’s the first time in school history Temple has lost to ECU on its home floor, moving the Owls to 1-2 in conference play and 8-8 overall on the season. 

“It's a season of ups and downs, so you have to try to stay together,” Fisher said. “I thought we really did a great job defending, rebounding, and setting the stage for what it takes to play in our program on Sunday (against Wichita). Then you come back here and it's not the outcome you want, so you have to try to just stay even throughout, not too high, not too low.”

Junior Jordan Riley, who scored a team-high 15, was one of the few bright spots offensively for Temple. He knocked down three threes and showcased his athleticism with a few fancy finishes through traffic. It was a nice bounce back for the guard, after a disappointing four-point performance in Sunday’s win over Wichita State. 

Redshirt-junior Jahlil White, who was in his second game back since returning from a finger injury, followed closely behind with 13, while Shane Dezonie continued to make the most of his minutes with 11 points and five rebounds in his fifth straight start. 

It was a grind for the rest of Fisher’s squad. 

After one of his best games of the season, Temple’s leading scorer Hysier Miller followed it up with one of his worst. He managed just six points on 1-6 shooting on the night. On the rare occasion he was able to shake off the aggressive perimeter defense from ECU’s guards, he was met by a pair of savvy rim protectors in Brandon Johnson and Ezra Ausar. 

Redshirt-junior forward Steve Settle III, fresh off of the heels of a Big 5 honor roll selection for his career-high six steal performance against Wichita State, was scoreless in the first half before finishing with just two points to show for his efforts. Senior forward Sam Hoffman was scoreless on 0-4 with just three rebounds in 33 minutes of action. 

“We evaluate every day, we try to figure out what's the best lineup to start for our team,” Fisher said. “Tomorrow could be somebody different, the next day could be somebody different. For me it's not always about who starts, right? I wanna see the guys that are competing and playing and then they dictate their minutes during the game.”

The Owls actually got off to a solid start in the first half, with Riley and Dezonie making up most of the scoring. They held  a comfortable five-point lead throughout the first half until a switch in coverage changed the tide for ECU. The Pirates closed out the first half on a 13-4 run to enter the locker room with a 33-31 lead and did not look back.

The Owls could not find an answer during the break, as ECU quickly rattled off another 14-4 run in the opening five minutes of the second half to push its lead to twelve. Temple ran out of ideas for the swarming defense of the Pirates, settling for tough mid-range jumpers and reckless drives to the baskets. 

“It was a good game in the first half. We got a little bit of foul trouble, but then they punched us in the mouth to start the second half and we weren't able to respond to it the way we’d like,” Fisher said. 

With just over two minutes left, Johnson delivered the play of the game when he launched a three point shot and turned around to talk trash to a courtside fan with the ball still in the air. When it went through the net, the ECU bench along with Johnson went crazy, as the Temple fans began to make their way towards the exits. 

ECU was carried by the stellar play of its leading scorer RJ Felton, who only missed two of his ten shots en route to a game-high 20 point performance. Johnson and Ausar chipped in with an efficient 15 points (6-12FG) and 18 points (6-8), respectively. 

It was another inefficient night for the Owls in a season full of them, finishing with 20-55 FG (36.4%) and 7-27 3FG (25.9%) shooting splits. For a team that came into the game 9th in the country for three pointers attempted per game (29.1), they are 294th in three point percentage. 

Temple will have a chance to right the ship starting this Saturday, when it hits the road for a two-game road trip to North Texas and SMU. Fisher hopes the trip will help continue to grow the team’s bond, something he says is even more important during this turbulent stretch of the season. 

“The biggest thing we encourage is to stay together,” Fisher said. “Stay together during the good and the bad, because you can see some nights you're not gonna have it, so you need someone to pick you up.”