Basketball season has gotten underway and Temple’s women’s team has a new coach. She isn’t new to the hardwood, or Philadelphia, but coaching is new to her.
Dawn Staley got her first chance to be on the other side of the game last Wednesday night in an exhibition against the Asker Lady Aliens (from Norway).
Temple’s 90-41 blowout victory was the first in what Staley hopes to be a long coaching career
Playing may come easy to Staley, but coaching is a little different.
“For me as a coach probably the hardest thing is the timeouts,” Staley said. “There’s too many timeouts, I don’t have enough to say.”
The former Dobbins Tech prep star and player with the Charlotte Sting of the WNBA, managed to find something to talk about, but barely.
“I just have to reinforce that we have to be good at the little things, boxing out getting the lose ball,” Staley said. “We have to keep our defensive intensity at a level
for 40 minutes because we’re small in size.
“I guess I have to get adjusted to filling the void, filling the time up. I’m not a talker.”
But after watching first-year sophomore Christina Cruz drain 18 points, Regan Apo score 14, and both Natalia Isaac and newcomer Athena Christoforakis score 11, Staley was content.
“I kinda like my quarterback seat,” Staley said.
Big Dunks
In the second game of the doubleheader, big Ron Rollerson, all 310 pounds of him, went up for a dunk.
When he came down he had scored two points and bent back the numbers on the shot clock. The LED screen stayed bent back for the rest of the game as the Owls defeated the London Leopards 78-60.
Rollerson is listed on the roster as 290 pounds but now comes in at a svelt, for him, 310. Over the summer the Pennsauken, N.J., nstive weighed in at around 340.
Coach John Chaney is attempting to get Rollerson to lose some more weight, thus making the scoreboard and hoop a lot happier when he goes for dunks.
Big Jumps
Later on in Temple’s exhibition with London, Lelton Brown made an extremely acrobatic move that almost cost a few spectators their heads.
The 6-foot-1 guard from Dallas, Texas, was going for a loose ball. He jumped over the first row of seats reserved for VIPs, but he kept going. He jumped over the first row of press seating, but he kept going.
The London player jumped into the second row of seats and then made his last move–jumping over two young kids watching the game. He landed in the third row and got an ovation when he walked back onto the court.
Two down, 27 to go
Temple’s women’s basketball team has started off their young season on the right note. After defeating Asker, Temple played their second exhibition of the season against the University of Latvia.
Christoforakis led the team with 17 points, Apo scored 15, as did freshman Christena Hamilton.
The Owls jumped out to a 8-1 lead and never looked back. Hamilton and Apo took the game over near the end and nullified Latvia’s three-point shooting down the stretch.
Junior Melissa Dunne started the game at point guard and dished out 12 assists. In the game, Temple forced 29 turnovers and 15 steals.
Anete Jekabsone, from Latvia, led all scorers with 39 points, including four three-pointers.
Temple starts its regular season with a game against Lehigh tomorrow night at 7 p.m.
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