Temple Part II

[Queens_NYC]

Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023
7:00 pm
Fifth Third Arena
ESPN2

The Bearcats (17-10 [9-6 AAC], NET #80, KenPom #63) look to build on a critical weekend road victory over UCF as they take on Temple (15-13 [9-6 AAC], NET #125, KenPom #115) for their penultimate home game of the regular season.

Temple recently broke a 4-game losing streak with a 76-53 home win over Tulsa. The major storyline to come from that game was the absence of leading scorer, 6'5 4th-year wing Khalif Battle (17.9 ppg), due to "personal reasons". There is no update on his status yet for tonight's game.

The Owls have the second-best 2-point FG defense (allowing 46.4%) and overall FG defense (allowing 41.8%) in the AAC (conference play only) after Houston.

In our first match-up, a 70-61 loss, Temple held the Bearcats to 38.3% shooting from the field (38.1% from 2, 38.9% from 3). UC also lost the rebounding battle 46-28 in that game.

While not an impressive offensive team, the Owls do shoot the ball well from the FT line (77.1% during conference play), which they demonstrated by going 14/15 from the charity stripe against UC on New Year's Day.

The Bearcats are 8-point favorites at home.

 

[sedziobs]

We are 0-3 against Temple under Wes Miller, despite them being outside the Torvik top 100 each time. They have sought to exploit DDJ on defense in each matchup. Against us, Temple often operates through one of their many bigger wings (Battle, Dunn, White, or Hicks) posting up DDJ near the elbow. They have also dominated us on the glass in each matchup. In the first game this season, Temple went on a 15-0 run in the first half that we never recovered from. They beat us 46-28 on the boards, with Jahlil White alone pulling down 16 rebounds.

One way to counter Temple's strategy is to play zone. On the season, Temple isn't a great three point shooting team at 33%. But they've been hot from beyond the arc recently, making 10 in each of their last three games at 44%. So going zone could backfire. Another option is to not switch any screens with DDJ and keep him on 6'-1" Hysier Miller all game. Miller leads the team at 31.5 minutes per game. We can match that with DDJ.

We also need to focus on rebounding. Temple isn't even a good rebounding team. They're #186 in offensive rebounding and #235 in defensive rebounding. There's no reason we should be losing by 18 on the glass to them. We can also try to exploit their biggest weakness, which is turnovers. We did force 15 turnovers in the first game, but Temple is #300 in taking care of the ball so we should pressure them more and not let them get comfortable setting up how they want.

On offense, we can't settle for so many midrange jumpers. We took 29 of them in the first game, compared to just 13 rim looks and 18 threes. That's a terrible offensive gameplan. Hopefully we've made some adjustments.

 

[sedziobs]

Temple is hedging ball screens hard. Night and day difference form UCF.

I have no idea why we don't have DDJ on Miller.

 

[sedziobs]

Free throw shooting saved us in this one. Temple decided to iso Nolley and feed the low post, and we generally couldn't stop it. We fouled them on a majority of possessions down the stretch. They did iso DDJ a few times early but abandoned that plan and mostly pounded the ball inside and got a lot of open threes in transition or breakdowns.

On offense the high ball screens were working in the first half, but we mostly abandoned them (or any kind of action) late and instead went for isolation with DDJ up top or Nolley on the wing. We were lights out from the line, saving us from a rough shooting night from the starting five. Skillings and Davenport hit some big threes off the bench. Nolley was hitting from midrange in OT, giving Temple a dose of their own iso medicine.

 

[Queens_NYC]

Frustrating to nearly give another game away in regulation but the end result should be the biggest takeaway of the evening.

Happy for Nolley to have a big response in OT.

Vik seemed to brush off the cobwebs as the game went on and made some big plays in the 2nd half. His presence will be critical for Memphis.

 

[sedziobs]

Nolley was just 3 for 12 from the floor in regulation, but then a perfect 4 for 4 in overtime, all midrange shots. Not really the offense I'd want to count on in crunch time, but it worked.

We were 28-30 at the free throw line. We scored more at the stripe than we did from beyond the arc, which is crazy for our offense. Perhaps most importantly, we outrebounded them, giving Temple only 5 second chance opportunities in a 45 minute game. And we did it with a small lineup most of the game. The bigs (Lakhin, Ody, Ezikpe, Hensley) combined for only 59 minutes out of 90 available at the 4/5 spots. That means Davenport was almost exclusively playing the 4 in his 31 minutes. Skillings and Davenport were 5 of 6 from three, which we needed because the rest of the team went 3 for 16.

 

[sirthought]

I think Temple has some really tough and good players. We were far too disorganized much of the time, but thankfully some things were clicking from a variety of people.