City of Basketball Love

Daniel Hughes (@dan1el_sun)
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Temple senior Josh Brown described his teammate Obi Enechionyia as a “bad boy”. Their coach Fran Dunphy knows Enechionyia to be a “strong dude.”

No matter what you call him, the 6-foot-10 man-of-many-names from Springfield, Va., led the Owls to yet another victory on Wednesday night, this time in a thrilling 78-72 road victory over rival Saint Joseph’s in Hagan Arena.

The junior forward scored 26 points as the Owls’ record improved to 5-2 (2-0 Big 5) on the season, while the Hawks dropped to 3-3 (0-1 Big 5). That is a career high for the St. James School (Md.) product and it is the second time he has reached that mark this season, previously having done so in a November 17 loss to UMass.

Enechionyia has not scored less than 16 points in any contest this year. On Wednesday, he matched that total in the first half alone.

The Hawks had trouble guarding Enechionyia, who can not only score from the inside, but hit perimeter shots as well. He made six 3-pointers on 12 attempts against St. Joe’s on Wednesday but showed that he can attack the rim as well, including a big baseline dunk in the second half that fired up the Cherry & White faithful.

“They were closing out pretty hard so I just saw opportunities for shot fakes and trying to get to the rim,” Enechionyia said. “I didn’t really see them focus that much on me.”

“A lot of teams switch,” he added. “They really didn’t.”

Temple has had a great deal of success this season, and Dunphy attributes a lot of it to Enechionyia converting on his threes.

Not only does Enechionyia average 21.0 points per game, but he does while shooting 51.4% from the field and 54.5 percent from behind the arc. Those numbers are up significantly from last year, when he shot 42.4 percent from the floor and 46.1 percent from 3-point range and was Temple’s second-leading scorer with 11.0 points per game.

It also helps that he is contributing 8.4 rebounds and 2.7 blocks per game this year as well.

“I think Obi, he’s that x-factor. If he’s making shots, and so far he’s been able to do that,” Dunphy said. “If you can find him enough looks, he keeps you in games.”

Enechionyia played all 40 minutes for the Owls tonight, as he did in the season opening win over Big 5 rival La Salle, and in the win against Florida State, where Temple came back from an 18-point deficit.

“He’s just so valuable to us,” Dunphy said. “He does not look like he tires, and so you can afford that opportunity to play him as many minutes as we did.”

(See also: Brown makes return from Achilles injury)

Hawks coach Phil Martelli is one of the many who had praise for Enechionyia.

“I think it’s sensational, every tape that I watched, I just assumed that every ball went in. I didn’t know where he could miss, I didn’t know when he missed,” Martelli said. “All credit to that kid. His stroke is so pure, it's really pure you know.”

Martelli drew comparisons between Enechionyia and former Hawk Isaiah Miles, who graduated from St. Joe’s last spring.

“We knew coming in that it was a funky matchup with us, because he’s not really a center,” Martelli said. “We went through that. We won 28 games last year doing that (with) Isaiah Miles.”

The Owls have now won four straight, previously downing Manhattan, Florida State and West Virginia. Florida State and West Virginia were both ranked in the nation’s Top-25 when Temple met them in Brooklyn as part of the NIT Season Tip-off Tournament over the Thanksgiving holiday.

But they might be most proud of their recent win over fellow Big 5 member St. Joe’s, as it comes with inner-city bragging rights for the rest of the year.

The Owls originally got off to a rough start against St. Joe’s, but they righted themselves to earn the hard-fought win. Although the Hawks were almost always within a five-point reach, Temple led for over 24 minutes.

“Any time we go down, I think it’s just a matter of focus and getting back to the focus that we need,” Enechionyia said. “This team is pretty resilient; I’m always confident that we can come back and win a game.”

Both teams will be playing Big 5 contests on Saturday: Temple at home against Penn; Saint Joseph’s at Villanova in the Holy War.

The Owls have been taking it day-by-day, and it has worked for them so far.

“We’re not thinking about the last game or anything like that, we go into each game just focusing on that game,” Enechionyia said. “I try to take it game-by-game and I know the rest of the guys do (too).”