A lot on the line here guys.

What defense do you guys think we should run? I know absolutely nothing about the other team. Zone? Does that expose us on the offensive boards?

What do you guys want to see out of us tonight?

This has been an issue since the opener against American. While they are poor shooters as a group, they also do not get good shots. The plan of attack isn't good. IMO, they do not really have a good triple threat decision maker to enter the ball to at the high post. While he is their best % shooter from 3, I am proposing that DeCosey may be the best option. he has the size to shoot mid-range shots, and can get to the rim. His decision making and passing ability are not good.
Does anybody have a better option? I also thought of what many coaches do which is to run your man offense, including ball screens to help Cummings penetrate. I have seen little if any of that this year. Dunphy seems to want to surround the 3 point line with shooters, but this obviously isn't working. If we get by Houston, ECU will be very tough. We shot very poorly against their zone, and were saved by a 30-10 rebounding advantage in the 1st half. That won't happen again.

Just put the Memphis-UCF game on CBS sports and Marc Jackson is the color commentator. He has done a nice job in the short time I have heard him.

They keep showing the conference standings and have talked about the Temple-Tulsa game multiple times in just the few minutes I have watched. Marc has stated he thinks SMU and Temple are the only locks for the tournament while Tulsa could be in trouble due to their low strength of schedule.

You have Bond, and one capable PF in Obi. We're playing major teams and Mark Williams and Devontae Watson are bigs we are relying on. No excuse for not having another PF on the bench.

This is a huge game. Where is the excitement?
1. Is Rashad Smith playing?
2. Did we figure out that Shaquille Harrison doesn't want to shoot 3's, and wants to drive it to the rim, to his left, every time? I sincerely hope so.

Better start getting some aggression under the basket to rebound the ball. If Tulsa gets these second chance offensive rebounds all game, we're not winning this one. Two of three Jalen Bond shots were absolutely horrible.

Need better set up and shot selection. Lucky to be in this game so far.

.

I mean I get it, we are all Philadelphia fans. We aren't supposed to be rational, or emotionally stable.

But it's insane to me how much the sentiment on this board swings after a Road Loss to a top-20 team. We won 6 games in a row before this. Yes, we should have won.

But my god, a lot of you are incredibly unstable.

Just your average 23 points, 20 boards, 10 assists, 4 stl stat line. If Big Ern can rehab successfully and if Sterling Gibbs transfers here (ok, I am reaching a bit) next year can be a real big year. Then if we can bring in Tone Carr and Lamar Stevens we can be well on our way to being a fixture in the tournament's 2nd weekend.

Ok, enough looking ahead, lets beat SMU!

http://highschoolsports.nj.com/game/score/2509631/

There are two upcoming game watches in the Philly area that I wanted to let you guys know about.

This Thursday, February 19 for the upset over #21 SMU, the Owl Club will be hosting watches at:

Center City
Field House
1150 Filbert Street
Philadelphia, PA

Blue Bell
PJ Whelihan's
799 Dekalb Pike
Blue Bell, PA

Cherry Hill
Millers Ale House
554 Fellowship Road
Mt. Laurel, NJ

Bucks County
Green Parrot
240 N. Sycamore St
Newtown, PA

Also, the Graduate Owl club will be hosting a game watch this Sunday for the Tulsa game at Pub Webb on campus.

http://www.templeowlclub.com/sports/2014/7/8/game%20watch%20landing%20page.aspx?&tab=2

Per a couple of sources, OwlScoop.com has learned that, earlier this offseason, Temple defensive coordinator Phil Snow turned down 3-year offers from Colorado and Washington State to become their defensive coordinator.

As you know, Snow's defensive unit finished the season 4th in allowed PPG at 17.5 after finishing 83rd at 29.8 PPG in 2013.

SMU has to be frustrated to only have 25 points at halftime.
This post was edited on 2/19 8:16 PM by TempleBAPittMPA

I know that some of you have expressed to us that you're not on Twitter and that you sometimes miss things if or when we break news on Twitter. To address that, we now have a scrolling timeline of tweets from Kyle and I on the front page of the site. So even if you're not on Twitter or have no interest in joining, you can still see information there.

During football and basketball games, we're not going to be monitoring the message boards - for efficiency reasons and for our own sanity. When you're covering games, you're following the action on the court or field, taking notes and putting stuff out on Twitter when you can. After games, once our stories are filed and the photos are edited and the audio is uploaded, we'll do our best to get around to answering questions on the boards.

Just wanted to explain our rationale for how and when we break or present information, so we hope that having that Twitter timeline on the front page will present you all with the best of both worlds.

4 guys stand around, Cummings dribbles for 25 seconds & then nothing except giving the game to SMU.

The game is getting frustrating but he's too comical.

I'm quoting from the ESPN recap - "There was a brief scuffle between the teams on the court after the game, with police officers helping separate them and making sure Temple players got to their locker room before the Mustangs celebrated with their school song. "It's not what we do and that's not what we should do," Dunphy said. "Game's over. Get off the floor and get ready for the next game." I wondering if Marcus Kennedy was in the middle of it??

Was named AAC player of the Week. He is the best PG Dunphy has had at Temple; sorry Juan Fernandez. He's a more complete player than Fernandez and more consistent from game to game. I was a big Fernandez fan but he had way too many games where he was literally invisible; he was feast or famine. Can't say that about Cummings the past two years (even though it took a few games (and a few players around him) to get going this year). Hopefully, Cummings is rewarded with a couple NCAA wins!!

I wasn't able to bail out of the office in time (Pacific time zone) to catch the start of the game, so until I got home, I had to rely on Sirius XM in the car. That is, once I found the right channel, as their guide had the channel wrong. Once I found it, it was the SMU broadcast. Their play-by-play guy is TERRIBLE! He leaves you in suspense with each play. What the hell happened? He talks as much about extraneous crap around the arena as he does about the action on the court. Only guy I've heard worse is the guy who does San Diego Padres baseball..

I can't wait to get smu on a neutral court.

A couple higher than I expected, lot of SMU love after their shellacking of UConn the other night.

Anyone know Obi's status? We need him on both ends, would be nice if he could stretch and make Kennedy or Moreira come out to guard him. Obi started the first game, but only played 14 minutes and took one shot because of foul trouble.

I think sometimes we forget about the ultimate goals. Fran Dunphy is an excellent coach
some people won't agree because he hasn't had great ncaa success. That shouldn't diminish all of the positives

Good luck tonight. Take down the Mustangs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2015/02/19/for-jay-wright-and-villanova-march-has-been-more-sadness-than-madness/

God bless America

Saw 2017 target NG's Quade Green up close last night. Oh boy can this kid play. From what I've heard Temple and Villanova are on him the hardest right now.

What do you think?

Came across this while reading a preview for tonight's game against SMU. "Temple has dropped 22 straight road games against Top 25 opponents since beating #1 Cincinnati on February 20th, 2000." Will Cummings and co have a chance to make some history tonight.