City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
--

With the season at its midpoint and most of the non-league games in the record books, the CoBL staff is taking a peek around the City 6 to see how each of the teams have fared this far.

Here’s a look at the Temple Owls as they prepare to enter American Athletic Conference play on Thursday night at home against Tulane.
~~~

Record: 7-4

Key Players: Quinton Rose (16.6 ppg, 6.0 rpg), Shizz Alston Jr. (14.7 ppg, 2.5 apg), Obi Enechionyia (12.6 ppg, 6.4 rpg)
Big wins: vs. Auburn (Charleston Classic), vs. Clemson (Charleston Classic)
Bad losses: @ La Salle, @ George Washington

Things we learned...

Quinton Rose has taken a big step forward

Quinton Rose showed flashes of brilliance as a freshman last season. He scored 26 points against a Top 25 ranked Florida State team in just his fifth college game. In his first year, Rose finished as the Owls’ fourth leading scorer at 10.1 ppg. After an impressive showing at USA Basketball’s U-19 training camp last summer, there was some national and local buzz that Rose was set for a breakout sophomore season. The 6-foot-8 wing has delivered. Rose scored 20 points in the season opener and has four other games of 20 or more points this season. He leads the Owls in scoring at 16.6 points per game and is also second in rebounding and assists. Rose has struggled with turnovers. He leads the Owls with 35 giveaways, more than three per game. If he can figure that out, he’s already proven he can shoulder the offensive load for the Owls.

Owls shooting better, yet less reliant on the three ball

Temple scored nearly 38 percent of its points on shots from deep last year. Only 15 other teams in the country relied more on the three ball than the Owls. At the same time, the Owls were an average 3-point shooting team, making 35.4 percent of their shots from behind the arc. This season Temple is making 37.4 percent of its makes from deep so far in 2017-18, which ranks No. 93 in Division I. While the Owls are shooting the ball better from long range, they are also relying less on the 3-point shot. The Owls are getting 33.7 percent of their points on shots from three and are now getting more than 50 percent of their points from two-point range, about a five percent increase from last season. The Owls showed in victories against South Carolina and Wisconsin, when the hit just four and three 3-point shots, respectively, that they do no need to shoot lights out from deep to win.

Things we still don’t know...

Who will produce off the bench?

Shizz Alston Jr. and Rose have given the Owls consistent scoring, both tallying just two single-digit outings a piece. Obi Enechionyia looks to have quelled his shooting woes with a 27-point outing against Georgia on Dec. 22, and Josh Brown has been right around his 8.6 points per game average in each contest. Now, the Owls need to find another consistent contributor. Temple’s fifth starter, junior forward Ernest Aflakpui, is a defense-first player, so the role will likely come from Temple’s bench. Sophomores Alani Moore II and Damion Moore are Temple’s two top bench scorers, averaging 5.5 and 5.3 points per game, respectively. Alani Moore, a 5-foot-10 guard, has seen his 3-point percentage drop about 12 percent from when he led the Owls by shooting 41.4 percent from deep last season. He might be finding his stroke as he has at least two threes in three of his last four games after accomplishing the feat just once in Temple’s first seven contests. Damion Moore, a 6-foot-11 forward, has a 20-point outing and five other contests of six-or-more points, but Alani Moore seems more likely to find a more consistent scoring role if he can keep hitting shots from deep.

Was the Charleston Classic a fluke?

The Owls started their season with two very impressive wins against Auburn and Clemson at the Charleston Classic. While the wins looked good at the time, they look even better now that neither team has lost since the November meetings. Clemson (No. 23) and Auburn (No. 39) are both ranked among Ken Pomeroy’s Top 40 teams. Since a 3-0 showing at the Charleston Classic, the Owls are 4-4. Temple has two Top 100 wins against South Carolina (No. 58) and Wisconsin (No. 65), but the Owls also have road losses to La Salle (No. 141) and George Washington (No. 158). Temple was trampled by Villanova in its only game against a ranked team this year. In their final game before the conference schedule, Temple lost 84-66 to Georgia (No. 63) on the road, dropping Temple’s record to 0-3 in true road games. Last season, the Owls picked up early Top 25 wins against Florida State and West Virginia but faltered when conference play began. It’s still unclear if this year’s team did the same thing against Auburn and Clemson.

Updated Prediction

ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi had the Owls as his second-to-last team in the NCAA tournament, right ahead of Auburn, in his first bracket prediction of the season. Getting back to the Big Dance after the second time in three seasons is certainly a realistic expectation for this squad, but it would be just as easy to see them on the bubble or out of the picture come tournament time after an inconsistent start.