On Saturday afternoon, Temple (3-0) took down La Salle (1-2) 70-65 as coach Aaron McKie earned his first Big 5 victory. In the five-point win, the Owls outscored the Explorers 28-12 inside the paint.
Senior guard Quinton Rose reached 1400 points in his Temple career during the win. Rose recorded 18 points and knocked down three three-pointers as he added three steals and two assists to his stat sheet.
Junior guard Nate Pierre-Louis scored 21 points on the day; 10 were scored in the paint. Pierre-Louis also made three dunks.
“Just being aggressive, trying my best to be in my spots when it’s open,” Pierre-Louis said.
Temple slightly outrebounded La Salle with 42 total rebounds as 15 of those came on the offensive side of the court. The Owls recorded 16 second-chance points in the victory and improved to 3-0 on the season.
Temple’s 21 points off turnovers were also key. A good chunk of those points came in the paint following a few breakaway dunks. The Owls scored 21 points on fastbreaks.
“If you impact them enough and get up under their skin enough, they’ll hand you the ball after a while,” McKie said. “But we got some pretty good athletic guys that got good hands and good feet. And we [have been] getting our hands on some balls and we’ve been able to convert.”
Temple shot 37.5 percent from the field and was more efficient in shooting compared to the first two games. The Owls went 21-of-29 from the free-throw line and iced the game with some late free throws.
The Owls had 14 baskets inside the paint, including four points from junior forward De’Vondre Perry and six points from redshirt-freshman forward Arashma Parks.
McKie has led his squad to victorious margins of eight, 18, and five against Drexel, Morgan State University and La Salle respectively since taking over as coach.
“3-0, I’ll take that, I’ll take it,” McKie said. “I’m not pleased with the way we played today. I told these guys, I’ll take it. So and we got plenty of room to grow.”
The Owls maintained their lead after scoring the first points of the games for 38 minutes and 43 seconds. The Explorers did not tie the score at any point in the game.
Temple will take on the University of Southern California (3-0) in Los Angeles on Friday at 11:00 p.m.
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