Three straight titles

The men’s basketball team brought an Atlantic Ten Championship back from Atlantic City, N.J., for the third straight year. Temple defeated Richmond, 56-52, Sunday.

The men’s basketball team had a little wiggle room as it headed to Atlantic City, N.J., last weekend.

With a spot in the NCAA Tournament basically guaranteed, Temple was not forced to make a deep run in the Atlantic Ten Tournament to earn inclusion in the field of 65. That was not the case the previous two seasons, as the Owls were forced to win the A-10 Tournament to earn an automatic bid to the NCAAs.

That didn’t stop fourth-year coach Fran Dunphy and the No. 12 Owls – the No. 1 seed in the A-10 Tournament – from dominating A-10 postseason play en route to their third straight A-10 crown this year, though. The last A-10 team to accomplish that feat was Massachusetts from 1992-1996.

“We are thrilled to be representing the Atlantic 10 as the champion at this point,” Dunphy said. “We are very thrilled to be going to the NCAA Tournament again and representing a wonderful university and a great league.”

The Owls were not expected to reach the finals this season, as a preseason coaches’ poll picked them to finish fifth. But the Owls finished the regular season with 26 wins and earned a share of the A-10 regular-season title with Xavier [Temple held the head-to-head tiebreaker].

“All three years we’ve been not picked to win the Championship or not even come close,” junior forward Lavoy Allen said. “We’ve been underrated from the beginning of the season, but we found a way to get through that and come together as a team. This year I would say was the toughest of the three. The A-10 altogether was very tough this year, so it definitely feels good.”

The Owls opened quarterfinal play last Friday afternoon against No. 8 seed St. Bonaventure (15-16 overall, 7-9 A-10). Sophomore guard Juan Fernandez got hot early thanks to three 3-pointers. A 19-4 run gave Temple an early 24-8 lead, but the Bonnies fought back with a 13-4 run of their own that cut the lead to seven points. An Allen lay-in right before the halftime buzzer and a 9-2 run to open the second half put the game out of reach. Temple advanced with a 69-51 victory.

“Most of the time we start the game by going down low, but today, it was the 3-point shot that got us going,” Fernandez said. “When [the game] starts and you make the first one or the second one, you want the ball, and if it keeps going in, you keep shooting, and if not, you find your teammates. Our offense today was really moving the ball and finding the open man.”

Fernandez finished with 17 points along with seven assists, while Allen dropped 14 points and grabbed 15 rebounds, the most boards in the quarterfinals since 1995. Sophomore forward Micheal Eric added 13 points on 6-of-8 shooting. The Owls shot 53 percent from the field and dished out 18 assists while holding St. Bonaventure to only 36 percent shooting.

“They’re a terrific team, terrific defensive team,” Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt said. “They’re a physical team. They run a great half-court offense where they protect the ball and take great shots, and we had a hard time keeping them in front. That’s Temple. That’s how they play, and that’s why they’re one of the top teams in the country.”

That forced a semifinal matchup with No. 5 seed Rhode Island, who defeated Saint Joseph’s and Saint Louis to make it to the final four. Temple defeated the Rams twice during the regular season, and the third meeting of the 2009-2010 campaign produced the same outcome.

The game was close for most of the first half until the Owls used a 12-3 run and went to the break with a 34-17 lead. That was all the separation the Owls needed, as they cruised to a 57-44 victory last Saturday afternoon against the Rams (23-9 overall, 9-7 A-10).

“It’s a real good win for us,” Dunphy said. “I thought we played as good as basketball as we could for the most part in the first half. I think we controlled the tempo and pace, and I think we did as good of a job as we could, and we kind of did what we had to do in the second half.”

It was another well-rounded offensive game for the Owls, who were led by senior guard Ryan Brooks’ 16 points and 14 points, seven assists and three steals from Fernandez. Fernandez tied his career-high with seven assists in both the quarterfinal and semifinal games and also did not turn the ball over once. Allen recorded nine points and 10 rebounds, the fifth time he had pulled down 10 or more boards in A-10 Tournament play.

But the real story of the game was the Temple defense shutting down the Rams’ offense. Rhode Island, who averages 77 points per game, scored 33 points below its season average on just 27 percent shooting.

“They play very solid basketball,” Rhode Island coach Jim Baron said. “They’re playing with a lot of confidence. They have very good confidence with very good inside play and very good outside play. That’s why they’ve been in the Top 20 all year long. It’s a heck of a team.”

With the win last Saturday, the Owls advanced to the finals for the 16th time in school history – an A-10 record – and a date with the Richmond Spiders last Sunday afternoon. The Spiders (26-8 overall, 13-3 A-10) defeated Massachusetts and then Xavier in overtime to reach the finals.

The first half was a tight battle, as the Owls held a slim 29-25 lead after 20 minutes. Temple went on its expected second-half run and jumped out to a 44-32 lead thanks to back-to-back 3-pointers from Brooks.

The Spiders produced a 7-0 run of their own, and with the Owls going scoreless for more than five minutes late in the game, Richmond trailed, 51-50, with less than a minute to play. With 22 seconds remaining and the shot clock winding down, Brooks drew a foul and sunk two free throws.

After two free throws from sophomore guard Ramone Moore, Spiders junior guard Kevin Anderson cut the lead back to two points. But with three seconds left in the game, Moore sealed Temple’s third consecutive A-10 crown at the foul line by sinking one-of-two free throws to put the Owls up by four points at 56-52, the final margin of victory.

Fernandez scored a game-high 18 points and earned Most Outstanding Player and First Team All-Tournament awards. Allen was also named to the All-Tournament team. His 11 rebounds marked his sixth A-10 Tournament game with 10-plus rebounds. He became just the fourth player to accomplish that feat.

Now the Owls head to their third straight NCAA Tournament riding a 10-game winning streak, their longest since 2000-2001. That year’s 10-game winning streak was snapped in the Elite Eight.

Temple, the No. 5 seed, will face No. 12 seed Cornell Friday afternoon in Jacksonville, Fla. The Owls are aiming to get past the first round, something they failed to do the previous two seasons when they were eliminated by Michigan State and Arizona State.

“We feel that we are experienced at this now, and we’re due to hopefully make a run or get a win under our belt,” Brooks said. “We’re looking forward to the challenge. It’s an exciting time of the year, and we think we are playing very well right now, and it can only get better.”

Pete Dorchak can be reached at pdorchak@temple.edu.

This A-10 title means the most

Temple was picked fifth in a preseason poll but proved the doubters wrong.

Stop me if you have heard this one before, but Temple coach Fran Dunphy and the men’s basketball team are Atlantic Ten Conference champions.

By defeating Richmond, 56-52, last Sunday, the Owls captured their third straight title and became the first team to achieve the feat since Massachusetts won five straight from 1992-1996. For a number of reasons, the 2010 Championship seems to be more satisfying for the Cherry and White.

Temple went into this year’s A-10 Tournament in a completely different situation than years past. The Owls entered the Tournament without 2,000-point scorer Dionte Christmas. For the first time in the Dunphy era, they also went in as favorites as the No. 1 seed. In the beginning of the year, that wasn’t the case. In a preseason poll, the league’s coaches picked the Owls to finish tied for fifth with Duquesne. That type of doubt is something the team has learned to deal with, junior forward Lavoy Allen said.

“All three years we’ve been not picked to win the Championship,” Allen said. “We were underrated again in the beginning of the season, but we found a way to get through that. We came together as a team.”

“Nobody thought that we could do this good this year,” senior guard Luis Guzman agreed. “We won the regular season, we won the Big 5, and we won the Atlantic 10. I know that nobody had the mindset that we could do it, but we did it.”

Players like senior guard Ryan Brooks and sophomore guard Juan Fernandez made sure the Owls did not disappoint once they got into the A-10 Tournament.
Brooks scored 16 points in Temple’s 57-44 victory against Rhode Island before scoring 12 points against Richmond in the A-10 Championship game. Four of Brooks’ points were free throws that came toward the end of the game against the Spiders and gave the Owls some much-needed breathing room.

Fernandez tied his career-high in assists in the quarterfinal and semifinal games against St. Bonaventure and Rhode Island by dishing out seven dimes in both performances. More importantly, he did not turn the ball over until the Championship game. When the Championship came around, the Argentine took over. He scored 18 points, including 11 points in the first half. His performance garnered him Most Outstanding Player honors for the Tournament.

Though Temple made it through all of its games in the A-10 Tournament without ever trailing its opponents, the level of competition in the A-10 was higher this year than in years past. After defeating Saint Joseph’s and Duquesne, two teams that were not expected to make the Championship the last two years, the Owls faced a 26-win Richmond team that wound up receiving a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

“I’d say this year was the toughest of the three,” Allen said. “Richmond was a very great team. The A-10 altogether was very tough. It definitely feels good to win.”

Temple is not finished, obviously. The No. 5-seeded Owls face No. 12 Cornell in Jacksonville, Fla., Friday in an opening-round game of the NCAA Tournament. Winning the A-10 Tournament was only the first step toward a greater goal, Fernandez said.

“It feels great [to win],” Fernandez said. “We’ve learned how to play together, how to play as a team. We have some goals, and we’ve achieved one by winning the Atlantic 10.”

No matter what happens in Jacksonville and beyond, players like Brooks, Guzman and senior forward Rafael DeLeon will always have fond memories of Atlantic City, N.J. Although the three already had a couple of A-10 Championships to their names, this latest one will be the one they remember for the rest of their lives.

Kyle Gauss can be reached at kyle.gauss@temple.edu.

Run This Town

The old Juan Fernandez is back, according to coach Fran Dunphy.

After scoring in double digits just twice after suffering concussion-like symptoms at Fordham on Jan. 23, Fernandez showed the type of offensive explosiveness he brings to the Temple roster by scoring 23 points on 7-11 shooting from behind the three-point line as the No. 20 Owls defeated La Salle 65-53 Sunday afternoon at the Tom Gola Arena.

“He’s gotten better over the last two weeks,“ Dunphy said. “The first couple of weeks he was hurting. We kept asking him how felt. He was a shell of himself the past four games. The process ended and now the old Juan Fernandez is back and certainly he was terrific today.”

Fernandez missed just one game due to the injury but definitely showed some signs of the bump he received on his head last month. Fernandez shot just 16-49 from the field up to today’s contest.

“They told me it was a day-by-day thing every day,” he said. “It was a process definitely and everybody helped me. The doctors were great with me and [head trainer] Steve Spiro was there for me every time I needed him. Everybody helped me a lot especially in giving me confidence.

“I was confident and everybody gave me their confidence in trying to get me back as soon as possible. This was the first time I had an injury like that and I just tried to forget about it and move on.”

Fernandez matched his career-high with seven three-pointers, a feat he accomplished in December when the Owls upset then No. 3 Villanova 75-65. The sophomore guard scored a career-high 33 points on 11-15 shooting.

“My teammates looked for me and I knew we were going to need to make shots,” Fernandez said. “I think the key was there when we started the second half. We got the lead and we knew we didn’t have to let them back in the game.”

With the wins over La Salle and Villanova, plus victories over Saint Joseph’s and Pennsylvania, the Owls recorded their fifth 4-0 Big 5 season and their 26th Big 5 crown in school history.

“I means a lot,” junior forward Lavoy Allen said. “Not only to us but to our school, our alumni and the Big 5 is a great tradition and it was really big for us to win it.”

“It’s a big deal for me,” Dunphy said. “I think it’s a big deal for Temple, for Temple basketball. From a personal standpoint, to be declared a champion of the Big 5 is very important. It may not hit them right away, but in five years, 10 years, 20 years, that’s bragging rights I think they will appreciate greatly.”

Temple (24-5, 12-2 Atlantic Ten Conference) and La Salle matched up nearly a month ago with the Owls winning 64-52 at the Liacouras Center behind 14 points from sophomore guard Ramone Moore. Sophomore forward Micheal Eric scored what was then a career-high 13 points on 6-9 shooting. The loss started a current eight game losing streak for the Explorers (11-17, 3-11 A-10).

Senior guard Luis Guzman opened the scoring with a three-pointer from the corner and Eric went on to score six straight points as the Owls went up 13-4.

La Salle responded with seven straight points and a 13-5 run of their own to tie the game at 19. Senior guard Rodney Green had six points during the run and finished the first half with 12 points and four assists.

Allen had a strong first 20 minutes of his own. Late in the first half, Allen scored seven straight points for Owls capped off by a three-pointer from the top of the key which put Temple up by three. Allen finished the first half with nine points and 12 rebounds (seven offensive).

Junior forward Jerrell Williams capped a strong first half for the Explorers with an alley-oop lay-in off a pass from Green as time expired. La Salle shot 50 percent from the field in the first half and entered halftime with a 33-32 lead.

The Owls shot only 35 percent from the field in the first half and were outscored 22-8 in the paint.

“I think it’s happened a number of times to us this season,” Dunphy said. “I was hoping it was going to happen to us today and it certainly did but we’ve been very lucky throughout the year with those kinds of performances of guys stepping up and delivering when we needed them to.”

The second half was a different story as the Owls came out firing. Temple scored the first 18 points highlighted by four triples from Juan Fernandez which put them up 50-33.

Allen added four points during the run and finished the game with 17 points and a career-high 21 rebounds, with nine coming on the offensive board. Allen’s rebounds are the most by a Temple player since Joe Newman pulled down 24 against Drexel on Feb. 5, 1973.

“The main thing is being aggressive,” Allen said. “[La Salle] is a great rebounding team so that’s one of the important things is keeping them off the backboard and that’s what I tried to do.”

“Lavoy is as good a rebounder as maybe [anyone] in the country,” Dunphy added. “He’s a terrific rebounded; he knows where to go. His defensive positioning is extraordinary, I’ve said that all along. He seldom makes a mistake on the defensive end in terms of his positioning. He has great hands, great positioning and he knows what he’s doing out there.

However, the Explorers bounced back from that big blow and responded with a 10-0 run to cut the game to single digits.

Green paced the Explorers scoring 21 points on 10-23 shooting while adding six assists. Williams added 17 points with five rebounds.

But that was the closest La Salle would get as the Owls won their fifth game in a row which ties them with Xavier atop the Atlantic Ten Conference. The win also earns Temple a bye in the upcoming Atlantic Ten Tournament in Atlantic City, N.J. from March 12-14.

“Coach every game says that every game is one step along the way and that’s how we take every game,” Fernandez said. “In this league it’s very hard to play on the road, especially Big 5 games and we have to be prepared. We made a name for ourselves and everybody wants to beat us. We just have to be focused.”

Temple has two games remaining in the regular season: Wednesday at Saint Louis and Saturday against George Washington, which is Senior Day at the Liacouras Center.

Pete Dorchak can be reached at pdorchak@temple.edu.

Every team a test from here on out

Saint Joseph’s had a losing record but still took Temple to overtime.

Despite the fact that Temple coach Fran Dunphy and the men’s basketball team have won seven straight games against Saint Joseph’s, the Big 5 rivalry is alive and well.

Going into last Saturday’s game at the Palestra, St. Joe’s (9-18 overall, 3-10 Atlantic Ten Conference) had lost three straight games, including an 88-52 thrashing by Xavier on Feb. 17. After posting nine consecutive winning seasons under coach Phil Martelli, the Hawks entered the game tied for 13th in the A-10. If the season ended today, the Hawks would miss the A-10 Tournament for the first time during Martelli’s tenure.

Also, since Honorable Mention All-American and A-10 Player of the Year Ahmad Nivins graduated, the Hawks have struggled with rebounding. They also rank 330th out of 334 NCAA Division I teams in turnover margin at -8.6 per game.

With all this in mind, last Saturday’s game should have been an easy one for the Cherry and White except for one glaring fact – it was a Big 5 game.

“Everybody says, and I’m still getting used to it, that a Big 5 game is different,” sophomore guard Juan Fernandez told OwlScoop.com. “If you’re ranked No. 1 and the other team is the worst in the country, every game is different. Today it was shown.”

On top of the rivalry, both teams entered last Saturday’s game jockeying for better seeding in the A-10 Tournament. The Owls are looking to seize a first-round bye, while the Hawks are simply trying to get in. That added element made the game extra tough, Dunphy said.

“I think the fact that we’re Atlantic 10 rivals and we’re both playing for seeding in the Atlantic 10 Tournament adds extra pressure to the game,” Dunphy said. “If it was just a simple, very difficult challenge for us with just the Big 5 game, that would be one thing. But then you throw in how important it is for the Atlantic 10 standings, and it really makes it doubly challenging.”

The Temple-St. Joe’s rivalry has always been a heated one. Before the Owls won seven straight games, the Hawks had won six of seven games. No two Big 5 teams have faced off as many times as the Owls and Hawks. Last Saturday’s game was the 150th meeting between the two teams. Temple holds the all-time lead at 85-65.

But Temple’s dominance against the Hawks almost ended last Saturday.

After leading by six points at halftime and opening up an eight-point lead in the second half, the Owls suddenly forgot how to shoot, allowing the Hawks to take the lead with 7 minutes, 40 seconds remaining. The two teams went back and forth until senior forward Garrett Williamson hit a layup to give the Hawks the lead with 5.7 seconds remaining. It appeared the Owls were seconds away from falling in both the A-10 standings and the national rankings.

Fortunately for the Owls, sophomore guard Ramone Moore had other plans. After taking an inbounds pass from junior forward Lavoy Allen, Moore raced down three-quarters of the court and successfully completed a layup to tie the game at 59-59 to force overtime. The Owls regained their shooting stroke in the extra period en route to a 75-67 victory.

Moore, who scored a career-high 24 points while grabbing a season-high nine rebounds, provided an extra element to the Temple offense, one that wasn’t relevant in the teams’ first matchup on Jan. 6, Martelli said.

“I don’t mean this to be disrespectful, but [Moore] wasn’t in the scouting report the first time [the teams played each other],” Martelli said. “He just wasn’t in there. Moore has a scorer’s mentality, and [the Owls] have a simplistic way of playing offense that allows him to kind of flow to the basket.”

While casual fans might be upset the Owls won by just seven points against a seemingly inferior team, that is the way it goes in rivalries, especially ones as heated as Temple-St. Joe’s. Each matchup has unique elements, and no game is as easy as it seems.

In a way, last Saturday’s game can also be used as a teaching opportunity for the Owls. From here on out, every team on the schedule is going to give Temple its all. No game can be overlooked, even games that appear to be utter mismatches.

Be prepared.

Kyle Gauss can be reached at kyle.gauss@temple.edu.

Defensive effort downs Dayton

For the first time since the Penn State game Dec. 5, the men’s basketball team failed to break 50 points.

But like that game, Temple found a way to win, as the Owls defeated Dayton, 49-41.

The Owls improved to 23-5 overall and 11-2 in the Atlantic Ten Conference. The Flyers dropped to 18-9 overall and 7-6 in the A-10.

It was Dayton’s lowest point total since a 59-38 loss to George Washington on Jan. 18, 1997. Entering the game, the Flyers averaged 70.3 points per game.

For Temple, the win marked the eighth time this season the Owls have held an opposing team 20 points or more below its scoring average. The Owls held the Flyers to 26.8 percent shooting from the field for the game, the lowest field-goal percentage by a Temple opponent this season.

“I know it didn’t look pretty from an offensive standpoint, for either team,” coach Fran Dunphy said. “I’ll wait and make a judgment about how well we were defensively until after I see the film, but I thought Dayton really guarded us hard and got in our face and made it really hard for us to run any offense.”

Neither team could buy a basket in the first half. Dayton shot 16.1 percent from the field and connected on just 5 of its 31 shot attempts. Temple did not fare much better, making just four more shots in as many attempts to lead, 19-13, at halftime. The Owls and the Flyers were deadlocked in the rebounding column at 24 all, and each team’s leading scorer – junior forward Lavoy Allen for Temple and junior forward Chris Wright for Dayton – had six points. Allen had pulled in 10 rebounds in the first 20 minutes, however, and finished just shy of a double-double with nine points and 17 rebounds.

“I thought Dayton had a lot of opportunities in the first half that just didn’t go,” Dunphy said, “and I thought we did, too. I thought both teams were really missing an ingredient in terms of finishing at the rim.”

“I think it started off with a lot of missed layups on both sides,” Allen said. “Everyone was missing. It wasn’t just one or two guys. I don’t know what it was. It was just the way the game went.

“At the end, it was very physical,” Allen added. “They wouldn’t let us run our sets, so we tried to get stops at the end. It was a very physical game.”

Temple opened the second half on a 14-9 run to build an 11-point lead – its largest of the game – with 13 minutes, 22 seconds remaining.

But Dayton would gradually chip away at the Owls’ lead. Normally reliable free-throw shooters like senior guard Ryan Brooks and sophomore guard Juan Fernandez – who shoot 80.2 percent and 85.5 percent from the foul line, respectively – each missed a foul shot later in the second half. As a team, the Owls shot 61.9 percent from the free-throw line.

“We obviously got ourselves to the [foul] line in the second half, but we didn’t shoot it great at the foul line,” Dunphy said. “It seemed like every time we went, we went 1-for-2.”

And those misses, along with a few timely late 3-pointers from Dayton senior guard Rob Lowery, got the Flyers to within four points with 39.9 seconds left.

Temple travels to La Salle for its next game, a 2 p.m. tipoff at Tom Gola Arena Sunday. The Owls would clinch the Big 5 title with a win.

Game Notes: Sophomore guard Ramone Moore led both teams with 13 points. He has now led Temple in scoring six of the last seven games…Senior guard Luis Guzman tied a career high in assists with seven. He also did not commit a turnover for the third straight game…Dayton was 12-0 this season when it held an opponent below 60 points…The Flyers were also 15-4 when outrebounding an opponent. They outrebounded the Owls 45-42…Dayton had won the last three meetings against Temple before tonight’s win…Dayton has not beaten a Top 25 team on the road since Dec. 8, 2007 versus then- No. 11 Louisville.

Jennifer Reardon can be reached at jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.

Owls outlast Saint Joseph’s in overtime

The last time out against Saint Joseph’s, Temple dominated inside with 33 combined points from junior forward Lavoy Allen and sophomore forward/center Micheal Eric.

The Owls’ inside presence outscored St. Joe’s 42-18 in the paint Saturday at the Palestra and connected on 13 second-chance points compared to the Hawks’ zero, but the No. 21-ranked men’s basketball team looked to someone else for its seventh straight win against St. Joe’s.

Sophomore guard Ramone Moore scored 13 points in the first half, which led both squads, and finished with a career-high 24 points and a season-high nine rebounds in the 75-67 overtime win, which counted in the Big 5 standings. Moore broke his previous career-high of 18 points, which he set in Temple’s win at St. Bonaventure last Wednesday, on the bucket that sent the game into overtime.

With 5 seconds remaining in the game, St. Joe’s senior guard Garrett Williamson converted a layup to give the Hawks a 59-57 lead.

But then Moore caught the inbounds pass from Allen and sped up the floor. He made his own layup with 1.5 seconds left to tie it.

“I thought that when Lavoy took the ball out that Juan [Fernandez] was overplayed, so I tried to get open so he could get me the ball,” Moore said. “I thought I had enough time to go the length of the court, and it was a great play. I was just thinking I was going to go straight to the rim and tie the game.”

“My first initial look was Juan,” Allen said, “but he was being covered. I saw ‘Mone standing at halfcourt, so I just threw him the ball. It was a great inbounds pass, by the way.”

Coach Fran Dunphy admitted that prior to the play he considered calling a timeout.

“I choked it back a couple of times,” Dunphy said. “It was a great individual effort [by Moore]. Lavoy saw Ramone, and Ramone had enough presence of mind to take it to the rim.”

“I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but he wasn’t in the scouting report the first time,” St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli said. “He just wasn’t in there. Now, Moore has a scorer’s mentality.”

Temple improves to 22-5 overall and 10-2 in the Atlantic Ten Conference, while St. Joe’s drops to 9-18 overall and 3-10 in the conference. The Hawks have now lost four games in a row and seven of their last eight. Temple needs one more win in the Big 5 to claim the city series title. The Owls face La Salle next Sunday at Tom Gola Arena.

Temple’s inside duo started the game off strong. Eric blocked St. Joe’s first attempted shot, and he and Allen scored six of the team’s first 12 points. Allen finished with his 10th double-double of the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds, but he did not pick up his scoring until the second half and overtime, when he scored 10 of them. His dunk and free throw in overtime gave the Owls a five-point cushion at 69-64.

Senior guard Ryan Brooks had two points at halftime, when the Owls led, 29-23. He finished with 12. With the Owls trailing by two points, 52-50, and 1:52 left in regulation, Brooks hit a 3-pointer for his first points of the second half and Temple’s first 3 of the game. About a minute and a half later, Brooks went in for a layup that tied the game at 57-57 before Williamson and Moore traded buckets to send the game into overtime.

Game Notes: This was the 150th career meeting between the two universities and the first overtime meeting since March 5, 2002. With Saturday’s win, Temple improves to 5-4 in overtime games against the Hawks…Temple’s longest winning streak in the series is 10 games, from 1996 through 2000…Moore started again for sophomore guard Juan Fernandez, who finished with 13 points on 3-of-12 shooting from the field in 33 minutes of action. Fernandez started the scoring in overtime with a 3-pointer…“Whatever coach Dunphy decides to do [about who is starting], I’m happy with that,” Moore said. “To me, it doesn’t matter who starts,” Dunphy said. “It matters who’s in there at crunch time, and we went with four guards down the stretch.”…The Hawks finished the season 1-2 at the Palestra. The Owls were 3-1 there this season…Williamson and senior guard Darrin Govens paced the Hawks’ scoring with 21 points and 20 points, respectively.

Jennifer Reardon can be reached at jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.

Rest gave Owls time to regroup

Temple used a week off to get healthy and work on shooting after its last loss.

Saturday’s win against Rhode Island put a lot of worries to rest for Temple coach Fran Dunphy and the men’s basketball team.

The last time Temple played before Saturday’s matchup with the Rams was back on Feb. 6, when the Owls fell to Richmond, 71-54. Playing without sophomore guard Juan Fernandez, the Owls shot 32.1 percent from the field, including 1-for-10 from 3-point range. The loss marked the second time in 10 days that the Cherry and White had fallen to a top-tier Atlantic Ten Conference team. The Owls had lost to Charlotte, 74-64, on Jan. 27.

The time off allowed Temple to focus on fixing the mistakes it made against the Spiders. After shooting so abysmally in Richmond, the Owls decided to force the issue in the paint, Dunphy said.

“To be honest with you, that’s the game plan all the time,” Dunphy said. “I think we looked more for [sophomore center Micheal Eric] today than we have in a while. He came through. He did a great job inside today.”

Eric, who scored 17 of his career-high 19 points in the first half, combined with junior forward Lavoy Allen to shoot 17-for-20 from the field. On the whole, the Cherry and White outscored the Rams, 50-14, in the paint.

The Owls as a whole also appeared to be more energized, Dunphy said.

“It would be hard to tell you that [the time off] didn’t help after the way we played today,” Dunphy said. “It was a benefit to us. We actually took off Sunday and Tuesday. I think it really helped us. I thought we were much fresher than we had been.”

The break was far from easy, as the Owls were given plenty of time to learn from their coach, senior guard Ryan Brooks added.

“It was a kind of long week, in a positive way,” Brooks said. “Coach Dunphy was on us like crazy all week, hooting and hollering like your coach should. He challenged us individually and as a team. He preached that we would need to come into this game more mentally and physically tough than Rhode Island was. We had to maintain our focus.”

“We were able to get back to square one a little bit and clean up some things,” Brooks added. “I think tonight we came out to a very good start, and hopefully, we can keep this going.”

Fernandez didn’t start, but the time off did allow him to recover enough to come off the bench. The 6-foot-4-inch Argentine’s presence on the court opened things up for other players, especially Brooks.
“It’s good for Ryan to have Juan out there,” Dunphy said. “[Juan] sees so much of the floor. It’s a nice thing to have him back. Juan looked terrific to me.”

The time off allowed the Owls to accomplish something they had not done since the Jan. 20 win versus Xavier – beat a Top 5 A-10 team. By doing so, the Cherry and White not only helped their ranking in the national polls, they put some distance between themselves and the Rams in the standings. Four A-10 teams get a first-round bye in the conference tournament. The Rams were a half game behind the Owls for the fourth seed entering the game.

While Temple might have loftier goals than in past seasons, the first objective still should be to win the A-10 title. To help their odds, the Owls need to secure one of the four first-day byes. The last time a team that did not receive a bye won the tournament was in 2006, when Xavier accomplished the feat.

Kyle Gauss can be reached at kyle.gauss@temple.edu.

Shooting Stars

With a week off to ponder their upset loss to Richmond, the men’s basketball team responded in a big way.

Thanks to a record setting day shooting the ball, the No. 21 Owls won the second game of Temple’s double-header, beating Rhode Island 78-56 Saturday afternoon at the Liacouras Center.

“It was kind of a long week in a positive way,“ senior guard and co-captain Ryan Brooks. “Coach was on us all week hooting and hollering as your coach should and getting on us kind of challenging us individually and as a team. He just preached that we were going to have to come out this game more mentally and physically tougher a team than Rhode Island was.”

This is the second meeting between these two teams in a little over a month. The Owls beat the Rams in Kingston Jan. 10 in overtime, 68-64. With Temple sweeping the season series, the Owls now sit at 8-2 in the Atlantic Ten Conference which places them in a tie for second place just a half game behind Richmond and Xavier.

“Temple did a great job of attacking the bucket, getting open shots; they did a great job of shooting the basketball,” Rams coach Jim Baron said. “The first time that we played I thought we did a much better job of defending them.”

It was a record setting day on a myriad of levels for the Owls who with today’s win accomplished their third straight 20-win season which is their 31st in school history. Temple (20-5, 8-2) scored their highest point total of the season while their top-ranked defense in the A-10 held Rhode Island to their lowest scoring total of the year.

Today’s game was a complete role reversal for the Owls compared to last weekend in Richmond. Last Saturday the Spiders shot 77 percent from the field in the first half to jump out to a 44-26 lead en route to a 71-54 victory.

This afternoon, Temple shot 74 percent as they entered halftime with a 43-23 advantage. The Owls point total eclipsed their 42 points at halftime against Duquesne for their highest mark in the first half. Temple finished the game with a school-record 68.6 percent shooting percentage, two tenths a percentage point better than 93-80 victory over Rhode Island on Feb. 21, 1973.

“During the course of the game we noticed that we were shooting a very high percentage but we felt that the reason we were doing that was because we were getting good stops on defense and moving the ball on offense and pretty much getting a lot of shots we wanted,” Brooks said.

Brooks and the Owls probably wanted to forget about last weekend’s drubbing by Richmond but they had nearly a week off to think about the loss. Sophomore forward Micheal Eric said that the time off allowed the team and himself especially a chance to get back to the basics.

“A long week of practice and a lot of running,” Eric said. “I got in better shape, I had time to work on a lot of things, a lot of offensive steps with the big men coach, Coach [Sean] Trice. I just had a lot of time to work on stuff.”

Eric’s hard work paid off big time today as he scored a career-high 19 points on 9-10 shooting from the field. He added four rebounds, four assists and two blocks in 25 minutes.

“I thought we looked for Mike more than we have had in a while and he came through. He did a great job inside,“ Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “To get where he was today offensively was a nice thing for him and I’m happy for his success.”

Brooks said that it was important that the big men for the Owls got into the action early in the game. Junior forward Lavoy Allen also contributed inside with 17 points, seven rebounds, four assists and four blocks.

“I think we did a great job of moving the ball,“ Brooks said. “Our inside players, Micheal and Lavoy, did a great job of finishing early and setting the tone and they really got the crowd into it and us into it. They did a great job of starting us and motivating us to play well.”

“I think our assistant coaches do a great job of grabbing him every chance they get and Mike I think is starting to understand that coming a half hour early and staying a half hour late and working on your game can be a real asset to how you play,” Dunphy said.

Dunphy is hoping that Eric will transform into a reliable asset down low for the Owls on a nightly basis. Eric missed four games earlier in the season and has been bothered by his knee which keeps him around 15-20 minutes a game. Eric says he’s healthy and is ready to make a big contribution the rest of the way.

“They need somebody to be more aggressive in the paint so they can have open shots on the wing,” he said. “I think that’s what I’m bringing and they’re trusting me and I have to produce for them so they can trust me more.”

There is also is some faith in knowing that if one player has an off night that another will surely step in and take over the scoring load. Brooks, who went 1-8 with just two points (his lowest total of the season) at Richmond, responded by shooting 7-8 for 18 points while knocking down all four of his three-point attempts. Sophomore guard Ramone Moore, starting his second game in place of sophomore guard Juan Fernandez, scored 12 points on 6-9 shooting. Moore has reached double digits in points in each of the last four games.

The Rams (19-5, 7-4) were unable to get anything going on the offensive side of the ball. Only three players, senior guard Keith Cothran, junior forward Delroy James and freshman guard Akeem Richmond, reached double figures. Cothran was averaging a team-high 15.6 points a game. Senior forward Lamonte Ulmer, who came into the game averaging 12 points and seven rebounds, was held to just six points on 2-9 shooting.

“We were able to kind of get back to square one a little bit and clean up some things,” Brooks said. “Tonight we came out with a very good start and hopefully we can keep this going.”

The Owls are back in action Wednesday when they travel to St. Bonaventure (10-13, 3-7 A-10). Next Saturday, Temple travels to the Palestra to battle Big 5 rival Saint Joseph’s (9-15, 3-7 A-10).

Pete Dorchak can be reached at pdorchak@temple.edu.

Game Notes: Temple mascot, Hooter the Owl, celebrated his birthday this afternoon. The Philly Phanatic, Flyers Girls and Temple’s T-Bird were all in attendance… Today’s attendance was announced at 7,080… With the win, Temple leads the series, 53-15, and has won the previous three meetings.

Owls duke it out with Duquesne

Two minutes into tonight’s game, coach Fran Dunphy called a timeout and started to substitute players in off the bench.

The men’s basketball team trailed by five points at that time. The Duquesne Dukes (11-11 overall, 2-6 Atlantic Ten Conference) would extend their lead to eight.

But Dunphy’s strategy worked, as No. 19 Temple (19-4 overall, 7-1 A-10) pulled even with 9 minutes, 34 seconds remaining in the first half, grabbed its first lead 28 seconds later and won, 76-60.

“I don’t think we started the game off really well,” Dunphy said. “So, we went to the bench. I get very unhappy when I don’t think guys are working as hard as they can and really staying focused. I thought we lost the focus early. I think that was just a statement by the coaches to say we need to get our act together.

“I think [all coaches] fly by the seat of our pants,” Dunphy added. “I was just throwing guys in there and hoping they’d do well.”

The Owls’ bench outscored Duquesne’s 39-18 for the game but 25-6 in the first half. Sophomore guard Ramone Moore led all Temple scorers through the first 20 minutes with 10 points. He finished with a team-high 15 points, while freshman forward Rahlir Jefferson and redshirt freshman T.J. DiLeo added career highs in points with 11 and seven, respectively. Their points could not have come at a better time, as senior guard Ryan Brooks and sophomore guard Juan Fernandez combined to play just eight minutes in the first half. Each player picked up two quick fouls and sat on the bench with no points. Fernandez scored to open the second half but finished with just five points. Brooks hit a 3-pointer halfway through the second half. He ended the game with seven points.

“We came out real slow,” Moore said. “The guys pressed us, got up on us. I think Coach just wasn’t having that today. He went to the bench early. I think we had to get our act together, and we did that.

“I think it’s just a collective effort [off the bench],” Moore added. “Every game we’ve got someone different coming off the bench and helping.”

“He thought we were taking this team too lightly and not playing our hardest,” junior forward Lavoy Allen added. “I think he motivates us to play harder, to play to our potential.”

Not only did the bench pick up the scoring in the absence of Brooks and Fernandez, but so did the third cog in Dunphy’s “three-and-change” scoring system. Allen recorded his eighth double-double this season, and his third straight, with 14 points and 15 rebounds. As a team, Duquesne pulled down 19 rebounds the entire game.

“They play a pretty small lineup, so the idea was to get the inside-out game going,” Allen said. “I think our guards did a pretty good job of getting the ball to us down low.”

Temple’s defense held Duquesne, which returned four starters from last year’s 21-13 team that made it all the way to the A-10 Championship before losing to the Owls, to 44.2 percent shooting for the game but 30 percent from beyond the arc. The Dukes’ leading scorer, junior forward Damian Saunders, shot 3-for-10 and 0-for-3 from the 3-point line. He scored his first points with two minutes remaining in the first half. Sophomore guard Eric Evans, who scored 12 points in the first half, did not score at all in the second half.

“You have to give Temple a lot of credit, especially Allen on the glass tonight. He was tremendous,” Duquesne coach Ron Everhart said. “I thought Jefferson and Moore came off the bench and just had very good games. I thought the second-chance points on their end were huge [Temple outscored Duquesne 16-9], and I thought every time we turned the ball over they really made us pay for it in terms of points off turnovers [Temple 12, Duquesne 7]. That’s not a good sign when you’re not getting any easy points.”

Game Notes: Duquesne falls to 1-8 on the road this season, while Temple improves to 10-1 at home…The Dukes have not beaten a ranked team on the road since Jan. 25, 1997. Under the direction of Everhart, they are 1-7 versus the Top 25 and 0-6 on the road. They lost, 68-39, earlier this season to then-No. 6 West Virginia…Duquesne has won just two of its last 17 games against the Owls. The Owls have now won eight in a row versus the Dukes at home.

Jennifer Reardon can be reached at jennifer.reardon@temple.edu.

Back on track

After they were blown out by then No. 1 Kansas at the beginning of the month, the men’s basketball team responded with a 73-46 blowout win over St. Joseph’s.

Three days after they were upset by Charlotte, Temple responded in a big way by handling Big 5 rival LaSalle 64-52 Saturday afternoon at the Liacouras Center.

A day after legendary Temple coach John Chaney was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame, the Owls used Chaney’s staple of tough defense to hold the Explorers to under 30 percent shooting.

“I think Temple was the better team from beginning to end,” LaSalle coach Dr. John Giannini. “Temple was more physical inside. Once again they had another great defensive game. I think the way they guard the ball is extremely effective and we just weren’t up to their challenge.”

The Owls were as four players scored in double figures helping Temple respond from their upset loss in Charlotte Wednesday night. The win improves the Owls record to 18-4 and 6-1 in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

“After a bad performance against Charlotte I just wanted to step up and my team needed me today to step up against the other big guys,” sophomore forward Michael Eric.

Eric did just that as he tied a career-high with 13 points on 6-9 shooting in just 19 minutes. With Temple leading by just six at halftime, Eric scored four points as Temple opened the second half with an 8-0 run.

“He’s doing a good job. He’s getting better as a player,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said of Eric. “He’s such a novice at the game still; he’s working at it and he’s a big part of what we want to be.”

Dunphy doesn’t want his offense to be just five deep and he got that today on a day when guards senior Ryan Brooks and sophomore Juan Fernandez struggled from the field.

Sophomore guard Ramone Moore scored 14 points on 7-11 shooting in just 17 minutes of action. Freshman forward Rahlir Jefferson made all four of his attempts to tie a career-high of nine points.

“I think in so many games this year we’ve had really good performances off the bench,” Dunphy said. “I think that’s what you need going forward here that you need guys coming off the bench and really doing a good job playing their role defensively. We were struggling a little bit offensively and Ramone Moore really bailed us out.”

Moore’s 14 points are his highest point total since he scored a career-high 17 points against Bowling Green on December 28. Between then, Moore has not reached double figures.

“I hope that he’s getting confident,” Dunphy said of Moore. “He basically knows when his minutes of coming. He’s knows he’s the fourth guard right now and when he’s ready to go he’s ready for that. I think it’s the confidence thing more than anything else.”

Against Charlotte, the Owls lived and died by the three-point shot. They attempted 35 shots from behind the three-point line making just 11 of them. Today, the Owls scored 36 points in the paint led by Eric’s 13 and 12 points, 10 rebounds and five assists from junior forward Lavoy Allen, his seventh double-double of the season.

“I think every game that should be a mindset but with Lavoy and Mike in foul trouble down in Charlotte, we were settling for a lot of threes. In practice we worked on [getting the ball inside] so I think we did a good job against LaSalle today.

“I think it’s very important for myself, Scootie, Rahlir and other guys like Craig coming off the bench just doing a good job and bringing energy. Usually our starting team gets out on a fast start but today they needed our help and I think we came in and did a good job.”

Temple’s defense also did a nice job shutting down an Explorers team that has some firepower on offense, holding them to just 29.8 percent shooting from the field.

Senior guard Rodney Green, the A-10’s leading active scorer and second in the conference in points per game, was held to just 13 points on 5-16 shooting. Green was also 0-6 from three-point range.

Freshman center Aaric Murray, who was averaging just less than 13 points with seven rebounds and nearly three blocks a game, scored just 11 points on 4-13 shooting.

“Rodney’s a very difficult matchup for most teams and certainly for us he has been,” Dunphy said. “I’m pleased with how we defended him.”

“They’re a well-coached offensive team that really knows their roles and know what they’re looking for,” Giannini said. “I thought their defense was pretty consistent throughout the game.”

The Owls are back in action Wednesday night at the Liacouras Center against Duquesne, a match up of last year’s Atlantic 10 Tournament Championship. Temple defeated the Dukes, 69-64, for their second straight conference tournament crown.

Pete Dorchak can be reached at pdorchak@temple.edu.

Game Notes: Chaney, former Explorers coach Speedy Morris and former Villanova coach Rollie Massimino were honored at halftime in recognition of their induction into the Big 5 Hall of Fame… Today’s attendance was announced at 8,501.

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