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.

No reason to panic after loss to Charlotte

After taking 35 3-point attempts in the Charlotte loss, Temple went back to its inside game in the La Salle win.

Well, that was bad timing.

A little more than 24 hours after I declared the men’s basketball team “The Team to Beat” in the Atlantic Ten Conference, Temple lost to the unranked Charlotte 49ers, 74-64.

Turn off the lights. Bring in the bulldozers. The season is over, right?

Not quite.

Even as I watched players like sophomore guard Juan Fernandez and senior guard Ryan Brooks avoid getting run over by an enthused Charlotte crowd who rushed the court, I could not help but think that the loss was not that big of a deal.

Sure, nobody likes to lose, but if it has to happen, losing to a team as good as Charlotte is the best way to do it. After all, the 49ers had already traveled to Louisville and routed the Cardinals, 87-65. Sophomore guard Derrio Green scored 20 points for the 49ers in that game, before he scored 26 against the Owls. It is difficult to defend against an opponent simply going off against you.

Also, the 49ers have a RPI lower than 50, and the matchup was in Charlotte, so the loss was hardly a bad one.

Despite all this, the Owls used the loss to Charlotte as both motivation and a learning experience, Temple coach Fran Dunphy said.

“We learned some lessons against Charlotte,” Dunphy said. “It’s a really tough environment to play in. It’s not like that was a real letdown for us, by any stretch. They’re a really good basketball team.”

True to Dunphy’s word, the Owls improved considerably in Saturday’s 64-52 win against La Salle. They won despite off shooting days by Fernandez and Brooks and instead relied more on unsung heroes off the bench to provide a balanced attack. The Owls shot 47.4 percent in the game, while limiting the Explorers to a mere 29.8 percent shooting. It marked the third time all year that the Owls have held an opponent to less than 30 percent shooting from the field.

More importantly, the Owls learned from their mistakes on offense. After jacking up a season-high 35 3-point attempts in the loss to Charlotte, the Owls focused more on getting production in the paint, sophomore guard Ramone Moore said.

“I think every game it should be a mindset [to get production in the paint],” Moore said. “With Lavoy [Allen] and Mike [Eric] in foul trouble down in Charlotte, we were settling for a lot of 3s, which hurt us. We needed those guys to get the ball in the middle and drop it down. In practice, we worked on that a lot. I think we did good against La Salle’s zone today.”

Individual players also used the Charlotte loss as motivation. Sophomore center Micheal Eric, who had two points and three fouls in 11 minutes of play against Charlotte, scored a career-high 13 points last Saturday. Bouncing back from a bad performance fueled him, Eric said after the game.

“After a bad performance against Charlotte, I just wanted to step up,” Eric said. “My team needed me today to step up. I think I had to come out aggressive, and I did.”

Temple is in good shape from here on out. Even though every conference game is tough, the Owls have a fairly easy remaining schedule. Other than a trip to Richmond and a couple home games against Rhode Island and Dayton, no other games scream “tough” to me. Assuming Temple plays to its talent level, the Owls should roll into the A-10 Tournament with around 25 wins to their credit. For the first time in a long time, the Cherry and White will not be fighting for a NCAA Tournament spot in Atlantic City, N.J. They will be jockeying for a higher seed instead.

By the time the NCAA Tournament comes around, the loss to Charlotte will be nothing but a distant memory.

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

Men’s rugby squad fights to 3-1-1 finish

The Temple rugby team made a strong showing on Saturday at the Liberty Cup Tournament, winning three of its five games, and fighting another to a scoreless draw.

While the matches do not count as regular season games, they did provide a testing ground for new members of the team who had little experience.

In the first match, Temple took on Villanova, but neither team was able to score. In their next game against Drexel, the Owls won on a single, five-point try. Later in the afternoon, Ursinus defeated Temple in a close game that ended with a score of 5-0. The Owls wrapped up the day by defeating La Salle and Shippensburg, coming back from an early deficit in the latter game and taking control of the second half.

By the afternoon, heavy rain had an effect on play, though there were no delays due to weather. Mud made for bad footing, while the wet ball led to more missed passes.

The team fielded two squads throughout the tournament, taking the spot of another school that was unable to make the event. Both teams were primarily comprised of B and C team players, with starters occasionally mixed in.

Junior Gareth Jones, team captain for the Owls, said they are ready for the regular season and had aspirations of winning their league’s championship. Only a few players left the squad from the previous year, and other problems with players are no longer an issue.

“We were plagued with injuries last year,” Jones said. “Now we have a healthy team.”

“We’re going to build on new guys from last year. Last year we taught the game. Now we’re teaching the tactical aspect of it,” he added.

One of the players injured last season was senior Nolan Young, who was out with a broken collarbone. Young played aggressively throughout the tournament, knocking one opponent out of the way so hard that the player was left gasping on the ground while play continued around him.

Aggressive and physical play was not limited to one person, however. All of the Owls were willing to both make tackles and take hits. Senior Neil Deloggio was singled out by another player for “laying out one guy cold.”

Senior Tyler Rumsey, one of the starters for the team and a Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union all-star, said he thought the team would be in good shape for the season.

“We’re going to do well,” he said. “We only graduated one guy last year. We’ll build on the new guys from last year.”

While Temple rugby has had a limited practice schedule, the team can only practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays due to field availability and the university’s policy. Jones did not indicate that it was any sort of setback.

“During summer practice we were trying to do as much as we could with what we had,” he said.

Temple will play four games in the regular season, which starts later this semester.

Gregory Weber can be reached at gregory.weber@temple.edu.