Temple Men’s Basketball opened the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu, Hawaii with their first-ever matchup against Nevada in program history. Temple struggled to find a rhythm inside the paint and allowed Nevada to find easy baskets around the rim.
Temple (6-5, 0-0 American Athletic Conference) fell to Nevada (10-1, 0-0 Mountain West) 80-56 Thursday afternoon. The Owls looked outmatched against the Wolf Pack and never led during the entire second half of play.
“Credit to Nevada, that’s an NCAA tournament team,” said head coach Adam Fisher. “They want to score in the paint and they scored 40 points in the paint. We had some lapses in the rebounding that we’ll clean up.”
The injury-plagued Owls had another setback with guard Jordan Riley missing his second straight game and guard Quante Berry logging major minutes in his place. Temple’s Jahlil White returned to the Owls’ starting lineup after coming back from a hand injury from a loss to VCU on Dec. 16 and played most of the minutes.
White struggled in his second game back, making just two of his 12 shots from the field, and had a game-high five turnovers. White gained most of his points from the free-throw line, making nine of his 12 shots from the stripe.
“[White] has been out for a while,” Fisher said. “We’re asking him to do a lot of stuff. I thought he did a great job getting downhill and getting on the foul line through a really tough defense. The shooting will come, we just got to keep getting him acclimated.”
Temple started the game strong, going up 5-0 with tough baskets from White and guard Hysier Miller. Nevada immediately answered right back with a 9-0 of their own and took the lead, which they never gave up in the first half.
Temple’s offense struggled to get going against Nevada’s defense. The Wolf Pack did not allow the Owls to get anything going inside early, holding them to just four total points in the paint in the first half.
“They have great help defenders, they pull in,” Fisher said. “Credit to them. They’re in gaps, they challenge every shot and they’re extremely well-coached. It’s a really good defensive team.”
Despite the Owls inside scoring struggles, Miller kept the Owls competitive in the first half scoring eight points, including two three-pointers and a fast-break dunk off of a steal on defense. The Owls went on a stretch where they missed 13 straight field goals but remained within arms reach of Nevada at the half, trailing by seven while holding Nevada to just 35 points.
The second half did not start smoothly for the Owls, as the Wolfpack quickly scored 10 straight points coming out of the locker room. Within the first three minutes of the second half Temple found themselves in a 14 point hole.
Temple’s self-inflicted wounds put a chance at a comeback in doubt. Temple committed 12 turnovers for the game including six in the second half. Along with the turnovers, the Owls gave up 20 second-chance points to Nevada.
Nevada Forward Nick Davidson played the best game of his collegiate career, recording his first career double-double with a career-high 19 points and career-high 16 rebounds in 34 minutes leading the way for the Wolfpack.
Miller led the Owls with 18 points and the Owls ended the game with three players in double-figures.
The Owls will stay in Hawaii for their next game and face off against either TCU (8-1, 0-0 Big 12 Conference) or Old Dominion (3-6, 0-0 Sun Belt Conference) tomorrow at 7:30.
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