City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
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Temple has not had the start to the season in which the team had hoped. With golden opportunities for signature wins against three top-25 teams and a road game at Wisconsin, the Owls have flopped and sit at a mediocre 4-5 record, which includes an overtime loss to Big Five rival St. Joseph’s.

With just one more game before kicking off the conference schedule at Cincinnati, Temple will have to do quite a bit to turn around their season before it gets to be too late.

Jaylen Bond needs to stay on the court

Temple’s lone captain, Jaylen Bond, is essential to the Owls’ success. The starting forward averages 10.9 ppg along with 7.3 rpg. However, he has struggled to stay on the floor this season due to foul trouble.

Bond has fouled out of two games for Temple thus far -- against St. Joe’s and against Utah -- both of which were losses.

His absence was especially noticed on Sunday’s loss to St. Joe’s when Bond only played for just 21 out of 45 minutes. In those 21 minutes played, he had just seven points on 3-11 shooting along with four rebounds. It seemed like several of his fouls on Sunday came at unnecessary times.

“It’s been an issue,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “His third foul was early in the second half, they had already secured the rebound and then he crashed into Bembry, as I recall. You have to understand the game even better than that. And his fifth foul was avoidable; we need Jaylen Bond.”

Devin Coleman has to get going

Devin Coleman started off the 2015-16 season with a bang when he scored 19 points against then-No. 1 North Carolina to open the season. He followed that up with a 15-point performance against Minnesota and then scored 10 against 22nd-ranked Utah.

Since those first three games, Coleman has not scored in double digits. In fact, in the six games since those first three, Coleman is averaging only 5.2 ppg. He has not been hitting shots lately and had an 0-for-7 performance against St. Joe’s, a game in which he scored zero points.

“I’m hoping Dev keeps his head about him,” Dunphy remarked after that St. Joe’s game. “We’re going to need him as the season progresses on. If he’s not shooting, we need him to help us at the other end – grab rebounds, keep people in front of you and do a good job on the defensive end.”

Temple cannot win if its starting shooting guard is playing as inefficiently as Coleman has been lately. He has shot just 23 percent in this six-game funk and must around for Temple to contend in the AAC.

Change up the starting lineup

As noted above, Coleman is simply not cutting it lately. One could argue that he needs to return to his role of last season, coming off the bench. Regardless, it may be time to shake up the starting lineup.

Dunphy left freshman Levan Alston Jr. in the game toward the end against St. Joe’s and has slowly increased his playing time as the season has matriculated. Is it perhaps time to integrate Alston Jr. into the Owls’ starting lineup?

In the last six games, the six games in which Coleman has struggled, Alston Jr. is averaging 5.7 ppg on 35 percent shooting in 19.5 minutes per contest. It could be time to give the latter more playing time to see if those numbers increase a little bit.

Temple has looked its best when featuring a two point guard option, including junior Josh Brown. Having two primary ball handlers has allowed the Owls to space the floor tremendously and really give them their best chance at success.