Ad Disclosure
Temple Basketball Could Quite Possibly End the Season on an Eight-Game Losing Streak and Miss the Conference Tournament Entirely
Published:
At one point in the not-too-distant past, Temple basketball was 15-8 with a 7-3 conference mark.
Now they’re on a six-game losing streak after falling to lowly Rice at home on Saturday:
Noted college basketball powerhouse RICE, which came into this one with a three-game losing streak and 11-17 record. They are the one of the worst teams in the American.
The situation now is that Temple is 15-14 overall and 7-9 in the conference. They’re 10th out of 13 teams and they wrap up their regular season at home against 17-12 Tulane before going to 23-6 Tulsa on Sunday. They did not play Tulsa earlier in the season, but they did play Tulane on the road, and lost 77-66, so it’s quite possible that the Owls drop both of these games to finish 15-16 and fall out of the conference tournament entirely, which only seeds the top 10 teams.
Current standings:
| Rank | Team | Conf | Overall |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | South Florida | 13-3 | 21-8 |
| 2 | Wichita State | 12-5 | 20-10 |
| 3 | Tulsa | 11-5 | 23-6 |
| 4 | Charlotte | 9-7 | 15-14 |
| 4 | UAB | 9-7 | 18-11 |
| 6 | Florida Atlantic | 9-8 | 17-13 |
| 7 | Tulane | 8-8 | 17-12 |
| 8 | North Texas | 8-9 | 17-13 |
| 9 | Memphis | 7-9 | 12-17 |
| 9 | Temple | 7-9 | 15-14 |
| 11 | East Carolina | 6-10 | 11-18 |
| 11 | Rice | 6-10 | 12-17 |
| 13 | UTSA | 1-16 | 5-24 |
Rice has to play at North Texas and then they’re home to last-place UTSA. East Carolina gets Tulsa at home and UAB on the road, so the Pirates have a tough slate, but Rice does not. Memphis, another disappointment, finishes with South Florida at home and Tulane on the road, but beat Temple at home in January.
It’s really hard to believe that the Owls could miss the tournament entirely, because they looked pretty good just a few weeks ago. They had a seven-game winning streak through the holidays and started 3-0 in conference play. But they’ve been suffering these bad losing streaks later in the year – six games last season, 10 games the year prior, and four the season before that. They’ve really stumbled down the stretch in recent years.
More than anything, they have to get out of this conference. These teams could not be any less relevant. UTSA? North Texas? Charlotte? The Temple athletic people need to pick between football and basketball. Make at least one sport relevant in a relevant conference and the other one, well, just figure it out. Ask the A10 for a basketball spot and then go independent in football. Temple has to do something because they’re an afterthought in both sports.
Do you want to be relevant in one sport and shit in the other? Or do you want to be shit in both sports? Because that’s the current situation, the latter.
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