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Not Feeling Great About Temple’s Chances of Making the NCAA Tournament
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There was a really nice college slate for hoop heads on Veterans Day. St. Joe’s, Penn, Drexel, and Temple all played Wednesday afternoon in a 5-ish hour window.
Unfortunately, the latter three all lost. Penn and Drexel battled Navy and American, but the Owls fell by 10 on their home floor to a Coastal team:
Temple was down 46-28 at halftime. They clawed back to make this one a game, but they couldn’t get any stops down the stretch. This dude Tavari Johnson poured in 32 for COC on 13-16 shooting and was 5-5 from three. It felt like every shot the guy took went in. He had 32 points in 33 minutes which is insane in the college game. He’s a 5th year Akron transfer who averaged 19.7 PPG last season.
As for the Owls, well, it was another first-half train wreck. And when they started hitting shots in the second half, the defense was nowhere to be found.
Shawn Pastor at Owls Daily summed it up:
…From Coach Adam Fisher’s perspective, those shortcomings all boil down to one thing.
“I think it’s effort, to be honest,” he said after the Owls allowed the Cougars to shoot 57.4 percent from the floor – 69.4 percent on two-point shots – in an early runaway that got close in the second half.
On defense, offense, and everywhere else, the Owls struggled out of the gate, falling into a 12-2 hole. It wasn’t as bad as the 14-0 deficit they faced in a 23-point loss to Richmond on Sunday, but it was close enough.
Doesn’t seem great that the coach is talking about effort after three games. Richmond was a barometer game of sorts for Temple and they got their doors blown off 79-53 at The Palestra. Then they followed it up by conceding 91 points to a CAA team at the Liacouras Center.
During Fisher’s tenure, the Owls typically start out alright before falling off in February conference play. Last year, they were 8-5 coming out of the non-conference slate, beating Davidson, La Salle, Hofstra, and Princeton twice. They battled Boston College and St. Joe’s and the only true thumpings came from Villanova, UC San Diego, and Rhode Island. You’d expect a handful of those for a mid-major team like Temple.
But these early losses don’t look like last year’s losses. They shouldn’t be getting smoked by teams like Richmond and Charleston. They should be competitive with those types of teams.
We’re not feeling very good about the Owls’ chances of making the tournament. They are going to have their hands full with La Salle on Sunday, before heading down to St. Thomas for the Paradise Jam.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com