City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

Temple coach Fran Dunphy always likes to say it’s not about who he has out there to start games, but who he puts on the court to finish them out.

So it says a lot about what Dunphy thinks of freshman guards Levan Alston Jr. and Trey Lowe that last weekend, in tight games against No. 22 Butler and No. 16 Utah down at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, both freshmen saw plenty of minutes down the stretch.

And though the Owls weren’t able to win either game, losing 74-69 to the Bulldogs and 74-68 to the Utes, the pair acquitted themselves rather well on nationally televised games early into their college careers.

“I was proud of them at the end of both of those games,” Dunphy said by phone on Wednesday. “They hung in there, did what they needed to do--they weren’t flawless by any stretch, but I think those games will help them in their development.”

After four games, Lowe, a 6-foot-6 wing from Ewing (N.J.), is averaging 6.5 ppg and 2.2 rpg in 16.2 mpg; Alston, a 6-4 guard from the Haverford School (Pa.), is averaging 5.2 ppg and 1.2 apg in 15.5 mpg, playing both on and off the ball in the Owls’ offense.

Dunphy admitted he didn’t expect the two to be playing such important minutes for the program so early on, though the whole program has been high on this class since they signed last winter.

The two both had stellar high school careers: Lowe finished with the second-most points (2,492) in Mercer County history, while Alston was named the Pennsylvania Gatorade State Player of the Year in 2015 after four years that saw him score 1,458 points in a Fords uniform.

But after both played well against No. 1 North Carolina in the team’s season opener, with Alston contributing 12 points and Lowe adding eight, it was clear they were ready for big-time college hoops.

“I think you gave them the chance in the North Carolina game, they contributed really positive minutes, so you have no fear, no trepidation the next time,” Dunphy said. “And they’ve done a good job in representing themselves and helping us be a better team. One of the things that came out of the Puerto Rico trip was there was no fear in terms of the competition piece.”

After playing their first four games away from Philadelphia, Temple (1-3) comes home for the first time on Sunday to host Delaware (2-1), taking on a Blue Hens team that just squeaked by Fairleigh Dickinson, 73-72, on Monday night.

While sophomore guard Kory Holden (13.3 ppg) is the team’s primary ball-handler and its most dangerous scoring threat, Dunphy is more worried about a Blue Hens front line led by 6-7 Marvin King-Davis (14.3 ppg, 9.0 rpg) and 6-9 Maurice Jeffers (8.5 ppg, 6.0 rpg) that’s been out-rebounding its opponents by an average of 12 rebounds per contest.

“We’ve been giving up too many offensive rebounds, (Delaware) got 17 offensive rebounds (against FDU) so that concerns us,” he said. “Everything concerns you as a coach, you want to be ready to go, be as prepared as you can be. But we can not foul them, they’ve got pretty good depth at the frontcourt positions, too, so those things we have to really be prepared for.”

It would certainly help if Obi Enechionyia is all healed up from an ankle injury that cost him the North Carolina game. The athletic 6-8 sophomore forward returned for all three games in Puerto Rico, though he was only cleared just before the tournament and wasn’t quite himself playing three games in four days; he averaged 10.7 ppg but just 2.0 rpg and 0.3 bpg, starting two games and averaging 24.0 mpg.

Enechionyia didn’t practice on Wednesday and the team was off Thursday, and his coach was anticipating the few days off would be a big help.

“I hope that he’ll be absolutely 100 percent ready to go, and that he will do a very, very good job and get himself some decent looks at the basket, finish plays at the rim and do a good job on the glass,” Dunphy said. “That’s where we need him to be really understanding how important the rebounding is to all of this is.”