Before the season kicked off, there were two starkly different viewpoints on the level of success Temple could have during the 2024-25 year. The preseason American Athletic Conference poll had the Owls finishing eighth despite coming off a 20-win season and a share of the regular season title.
Head coach Diane Richardson and her team saw things much differently.
Returning three starters and adding a handful of impact transfers, the Owls didn’t view last season as a fluke. They used the preseason ranking as motivation and proceeded to shoot past expectations yet again.
Temple fought through a difficult nonconference schedule and a rough patch in the middle of conference play to finish with 19 wins and a double bye in the AAC tournament. However, Temple once again fell short in the tournament, losing to Rice in the semifinals for the second straight year. While the Owls showed sustained success this season, they were haunted by offensive struggles that prevented them from reaching their full potential.
“I’m proud of [the team],” Richardson said. “We had a 20-win season again, but I thought that we worked really hard this year and that we should have pulled this off. I am sad that they didn’t get [the win]. I’m sad that our seniors didn’t go out with us playing for a championship.”
A season-long issue hindered the Owls: a stagnant offense. The unit seemed like a well-oiled machine on paper, finishing as the sixth-best in the AAC with 66 points per game. However, it was plagued by stretches where it could not buy a bucket and typically had one quarter where the offense disappeared.
This trend was especially evident during the Owls’ nonconference slate, where they finished just 6-5. Richardson crafted the nonconference schedule to be as tough as possible, matching her team up against four teams that made this year’s NCAA Tournament. Temple scored 60 points in just six nonconference matchups, showing its offensive deficiencies.
Richardson’s team has become known for running her ‘equal opportunity offense’ that allows for every player on the floor to be a scoring threat. That offensive philosophy caused the team to struggle to start the season but they flipped the script in AAC play, boasting the top-scoring offense in conference matchups.
“This equal opportunity offense allows everybody to be a star and we want everybody to be a star,” Richardson said. “It’s hard to defend five people. You can’t double-team anybody because you can get scoring from everybody.”
At times, that offensive firepower came at the expense of leading scorer Tiarra East’s production.
East entered the season as a preseason all-conference second-team selection and led the Owls in scoring through nonconference play, pouring in 16 points per game. But her scoring touch faded away once the AAC schedule kickstarted.
East averaged 13 points per game during conference action but wasn’t able to score efficiently. She shot just 37% from the field and scored less than 10 points eight times during the conference slate. She improved her play in the back end of the season but the momentum fizzled out in the AAC tournament, going just 4-25 from the field in Temple’s two games.
East’s struggles allowed other players to take the mantle and become viable contributors. Guard Kaylah Turner and forward Jaleesa Molina became vital to Temple’s success and turned into offensive threats.
Turner transferred from Alabama A&M during the offseason and became a spark plug off the bench after adjusting to a new role. She was the Owls’ third-leading scorer in conference play with 11 points per game and scored more than 20 points three times. Her production earned her the AAC sixth-player of the year and a spot on the All-Newcomer team.
Molina struggled to find her footing as a freshman last season but returned to North Broad Street with increased expectations. The same struggles seemed to haunt Molina during the first half of the season, but she took a step forward as the year progressed. Molina finished conference play with six double-doubles and averaged nearly 10 points and eight rebounds per game.
“Most of the time [last season] I got the rebound and passed it out and [the coaches] wanted me to get a putback,” Molina said. “That’s easy stuff that I didn’t do, but it’s what we worked on. Getting putbacks, grabbing rebounds and then and-ones or fouls is stuff that we worked on.”
Temple won six of its first seven conference games and looked like it was going to breeze to a top-four seed. However, they lost four of five games as the calendar turned to February, sending the season into a downward spiral. Temple held double-digit second-half leads against two of the best teams in the AAC in North Texas on Jan. 29 and UTSA on Feb. 1 and looked as if it was going to cruise to easy wins. Instead, the Owls blew both games, hurting their chances to finish atop the conference.
“We know we are capable of winning those two games,” Turner said. “So we just used those experiences as motivation.”
The motivation worked and Temple ripped off six straight wins to end the season, earning the fourth seed in the AAC tournament. The Owls were ready to avenge last season’s heartbreak and started the tournament strong with a blowout win against Charlotte.
However, the Owls’ offensive issues returned against Rice, as they scored just 49 points and met their maker for the second straight season in the AAC semifinals. The loss ended Temple’s roller-coaster season but showed the program can have consistent success.
Temple will say goodbye to captains East and guard Tarriyonna Gary, and must turn their attention to retaining players like Molina and Turner. Richardson will have to head back into the transfer portal to fill the gaps on her roster and try to get past the roadblock that is the semifinals next season.
“We’re losing five people and obviously we’ve got to replace them,” Richardson said. “But my goal is to build around the players that we have, so we’re going to go up there and we’re going to look for depth just like we do every year. Jaleesa told me in the hallway ‘Next year coach,’ so I believe it.”
Be the first to comment