City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
—

Fact One: The Temple men are only two games into their season. 

Fact Two: The Owls have looked good. 

Temple’s 90-63 win over La Salle on Tuesday evening at the Liacouras Center was more than just a Big 5 win. It was an absolute demolition of a city rival, the Owls’ biggest win in the city series since a 108-61 blowout of St. Joe’s on Dec. 10, 2019. That was a season to forget for Temple, which was 7-2 at the time of that blowout but finished 14-17 (6-12 American) in the first year of Aaron McKie’s tenure. 

After beating Delaware State by 18 in the season opener last week, Temple coach Adam Fisher is hoping this is just the start of a season that finally sees his Owls break through in his third year. 

“Really pleased with tonight’s results, I thought we really prepared the right way, I thought these guys were totally locked in,” Fisher told the assembled media afterwards. “I thought we played hard, proud of how we shared the ball and got better, and again we’ll enjoy this tonight and get ready for the next opponent.”

The Temple men have gone a combined 33-35 in Fisher’s two first two years, the win over La Salle evening his North Broad record at .500. And there was a lot to like about the way the Owls got it done on Tuesday. 

Senior guard Derrian Ford, a first-year member of the program after previous stops at Arkansas and Arkansas State, led the offensive effort with 22 points. But he was just one of five Owls in double figures, joined by sophomore Aidan Tobiason (16 points), senior Jordan Mason (14 points), senior A.J. Smith (10 points) and junior Gavin Griffiths (10 points). 

Ford gave credit to a visit and pep talk from Fisher’s mentor, former Miami coach Jim Larranaga, for helping get his mind right. 

“One thing that stood out to me, he talked about ‘play the game, not the score,’ and so whatever happens just happens,” said the muscular and talkative 6-foot-2 guard from Magnolia, Ark. “So that’s been my mentality ever since he told us that, and it’s been working not worried about what’s going on, just play the game, try to play the game the right way.”

The balance didn’t stop there. 

As a team, Temple shot exactly 50% from the floor (34-of-68) and from 3-point range (12-of-50), with six different players connecting from deep. They also won the rebounding battle 44-30, getting four-or-more rebounds from seven different players, and had 20 assists, with four different players collecting three-or-more dimes. 

Tobiason, who led the Owls with 23 points in their season-opening win, was 6-of-10 from the floor (3-6 3PT) in this one while adding six rebounds, three assists, two steals, two blocks and a turnover in 32-plus minutes. 

“Last game I had a lot of points but I had very little of the other stuff,” he said. “This game I wanted to emphasize, with the gameplan, getting more boards, getting my teammates involved more, getting to be an all-around player.”

The Owls only turned it over eight times, equalling their number of blocked shots. It was hard to find an area on the stat sheet for Fisher to complain about, though he had at least one complaint afterwards.

“Was disappointed on our baseline out of bounds,” he said. “We gave up too many in that category.”

He might have been the only one who noticed.

Temple controlled most of the first half, taking a 42-29 edge into the break. But they really exploded out of the gates in the second, taking the lead up into the 20s within the first few minutes, and getting it to 30 for the first time with just under 10 minutes to play on an alley-oop dunk by Jamai Felt. 

They cruised from there, getting the deepest parts of the bench some run in the final few minutes to the delight of the 3,100 reported in attendance. That sets up a matchup with Villanova on Dec. 1 for the right to play in the Big 5 championship game on Dec. 6 at the Xfinity Mobile Arena (formerly Wells Fargo Center).

Even though most of the Temple roster isn’t from anywhere close to Philadelphia, they understand the importance of the city series to the fans. 

“I want to win the Big 5, I know the coaching staff and teammates do, we’re just locked in together,” Ford said. “We all have the same mindset and that’s why we play so well together.”

~~~

La Salle left licking its wounds

La Salle’s first-year head coach Darris Nichols was feeling good coming out of the weekend, his Explorers having won their first two games against Coppin State (87-59) and Monmouth (73-60) to open the season. 

Tuesday night was certainly a wake-up call for the former Radford head coach, who watched a team that prides itself on toughness and physicality get out-everything’d for just about all of 40 minutes. 

“We told our guys, if you look at the breakdown of our roster and look at wins and losses at their schools, their previous schools, a lot of guys haven’t had a ton of success,” Nichols said. “Winning two games, how do you handle that? I don’t think we handled it very well.”

Jaeden Marshall, who’d averaged more than 20 points through La Salle’s first couple, was held to nine by a physical Temple defense. Rob Dockery (11 points) and Jerome Brewer Jr. (10 points) paced them in scoring, but they couldn’t get much going in terms of offensive flow or rhythm.

The Explorers only led for 90 seconds, in the opening minutes of the game, but otherwise played from behind against a constantly-widening margin. Nichols, who put together an entirely new roster this offseason just like Fisher did — Temple had two returners, La Salle one from the season before — noted that his team still had work to do to become such, especially compared to an Owls’ bench that was fired up all game long. 

“One big play stood out to me, at the end of the game,” Nichols said. “Freshman Nas Haart gets in the game, dives on the floor for a loose ball — I look at our bench, and we’re not up celebrating our teammates’ success. And that’s just a challenge, when you’ve got 17 new guys, a challenge to be connected, and I thought Temple was more connected than us, especially tonight.”

~~~

Felt makes high-flying return to Temple rotation

That dunk by the 6-9 Felt during Temple’s second-half push brought out one of the biggest yells from an Owls bench that had plenty to celebrate. And it was clear how they felt when he checked out a couple minutes later, the sophomore wing getting a big hug from Fisher and a few of his teammates. 

It was a long-awaited return to the court for Felt, who missed the entire offseason due to injury; that’s nothing new for the Boston native, who missed two whole seasons at Bowling Green due to ACL tears.  

Felt played four minutes, finishing with four points and no other stats in his brief run. But it was a good sign for the Owls to have the 6-9 wing/forward back on the court, even in limited fashion, as he hopes to build on a redshirt freshman season at Bowling Green where he averaged 5.7 ppg and 6.3 rpg in 32 games (24 starts), with four double-doubles.

“It’s just getting him comfortable,” Fisher said. “I thought he was great, staying ready — when you don’t play the first game, it’s staying ready, staying ready, and we eased him in. I thought he was really good tonight.”

~~~

Up Next

Temple (2-0, 1-0 Big 5) hosts Boston College on Saturday (2 PM)

La Salle (2-1, 0-1 Big 5) plays Penn State on Saturday (1:00 PM, Xfinity Mobile Arena)