City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Diane Richardson made it clear upon her arrival in Philadelphia that her intent was to build a contender at Temple, and to do it quickly. 

It only took the Maryland-area native two seasons to get the Owls there, going from an 11-win campaign in her first year to a 20-12 campaign in 2023-24, including a 13-5 mark in American Athletic Conference play. That earned the Owls a spot in a three-way tie atop the AAC, even with North Texas and Tulsa, their first regular-season conference crown since tying with George Washington atop the Atlantic 10 standings in 2007-08.

Just because the Owls fell short in the AAC semifinals a year ago and have only four members back from that rotation, Richardson’s expectations haven’t changed in the slightest. Which is why she scheduled her team with a jump right into the deep end for 2024-25, hosting defending Atlantic 10 champs Richmond in the season opener Monday night, the Spiders returning four starters from a 29-win squad. 

The Owls weren’t able to open the season with a win, falling 79-72 in an entertaining game at the Liacouras Center. But Richardson saw enough to know her squad has what it takes to be in the AAC mix once again, battling from down 16 in the third quarter to take the lead within the game’s final minutes. 

Temple’s inability to close the game out will hurt on the resume if they should be in the mix for an at-large NCAA bid come March. Barring that, Richardson’s going to take an optimistic view of what she saw, with a whole season still to come.

“It’s encouraging to know that we can play,” Richardson said, “because that second half, we definitely played Temple basketball. The first half, I don’t know if it was first-game jitters or what, but we weren’t as aggressive. But they know now in the locker room that our second half was the way we need to play basketball.”

Temple’s got a lot to adjust to this season — no more Aleah Nelson (11.8 ppg), Demi Washington (9.5 ppg), Rayne Tucker (7.9 ppg) or Ines Piper (6.8 ppg), who started a combined 115 games a year ago, with a few deeper reserves gone as well. 

Tiara East and Tarriyonna Gary are the main returning pieces, and they carried the load Monday night, combining for 41 points against Richmond. East was particularly impressive, the 5-foot-10 guard from Louisville taking over when Gary went down with a leg injury late in the third quarter, her four-point play early in the fourth getting Temple within 62-58 after it had been a 16-point gap early in the third quarter and 14 late in the period.

East finished with 23 points on 8-of-16 shooting, with four assists and two rebounds.

She was the team’s leading scorer a year ago (13.8 ppg), but with Nelson in the backcourt, East’s role in the offense still felt secondary. This year she’s the primary offensive option, and she played like it.

“It’s her time, her time,” Richardson said. “She’s worked really hard this summer, and she has that mentality that we are this close and so you’ve got to give more, and she did that in the second half. Kinda turned the game around for us.”

Gary’s brief injury scare turned out to be temporary, the grad student — who followed Richardson from Towson to Temple two years back — returning to the court early in the fourth. She finished with 18 points on 6-of-15 shooting (4-12 3PT). 

Temple had no answer for Richmond junior Rachel Ullstrom, the reigning A-10 Sixth Woman of the Year going for 32 points (9-11 FG, 4-5 3PT, 10-10 FT). The Spiders’ frontcourt, featuring senior Addie Budnik (9 pts) and O’Hara grad Maggie Doogan, is a major reason they’re picked to repeat as A-10 champs, and that size gave Temple problems throughout, Richmond winning the rebound battle 39-26. 

Temple made up for some of that by forcing 25 turnovers, including 16 in the second half, but gave it back 16 times, led by East’s seven giveaways.

“We turned them over 25 times, and we had 26 points off turnovers, but again, we started really late with that aggressive defense,” Richardson said. “Our defense is aggressive, and we can turn people over, we just have to do it much earlier.”

It was Gary who hit a 3-pointer off an inbounds play to put Temple up 72-71 with 1:33 left, the Owls’ final points of the night. Richmond scored the final eight points, including a steal-and-layup by Ullstrom with a minute remaining; the Owls turned it over on the ensuing possession, and the Spiders finished the game at the line. 

The Owls had their own positives in the frontcourt. St. Mary’s transfer Amaya Oliver, a 6-1 grad student, finished with 14 points and eight rebounds in 35 minutes. Anissa Rivera, a Towson transfer who hadn’t played in two years due to injuries, contributed four points and seven rebounds in 30 minutes off the bench. 

“I think we’re going to get to that point this season, where we’re going to be able to use our size, as everybody learns everybody,” Richardson said. “We’ve got some new people with size, but we’ve got to work them in so they’re used to playing with each other.”

The Owls are back in action next Tuesday with a trip down to Delaware, followed three days later with a trip to Richmond and one afterwards to Georgetown (Nov. 19). Their next home game is Nov. 23, the Big 5 opener against Drexel. 

There’s still a lot of work to be done before AAC play begins on Dec. 29 at UAB. That includes developing the back part of the rotation including freshmen Savannah Curry (Westtown) and Felicia Jacobs, redshirt freshman Drew Alexander, and sophomore Kaylah Turner. That group all saw action against Richmond, combining for six points in 22 minutes.

“I think the thing with our newcomers is, they were kind of deferring, letting the returners do their thing, but they were really, really good players and that’s why we recruited them,” Richardson said. “They don’t need to defer, they just need to do what they need to do.”