ADVERTISEMENT

OT: Philly Media

I'm not one to rail on the Philly media as I think they do a fair job covering Temple under the shadow of the major sports. However, this one pissed me off. The headline on the main Philly.com web site is "Temple student dies in fall". When you click the link, the actual headline of the article is "Woman dies on fall, injures pedestrian." The story is about a girl who fell off a balcony from her center city apartment. The article calls it a "dorm", but to my knowledge the university has no dorm space in center city, and only on main campus. Perhaps the woman was a student but I'm not sure why that is the headline. If this was a Penn student would the headline have read "Penn student falls to death?" I think not. Yet I'd bet the author of the article is a Temple grad. It reminds me of a headline about 8 years ago which read "Temple student stabbed." You had to read the article to learn that the Temple student was stabbed on Penn's campus.

PS- Still pissed about Wed night and the loss to SMU. Lack of interior defense made us look like a high school team in the second half. This team lives and dies by the 3. When shooting is cold from Morgan and Q we have no shot to win. Disappointing as I was really starting to get excited for this season.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150116_Woman_falls_from_Center_City_apartment__injuring_pedestrian.html

Programming/tech note - please read

Hi, everyone.

Rivals has been doing some "stress testing" of the network to prepare for National Signing Day and will be doing another test of the network tonight and into the early hours of tomorrow morning. As a result of that, every single
Rivals subscriber - even publishers and site staff - will be automatically logged out Saturday at 1 a.m. EST. Every single user will then be required to log back in with their username and password that
they are registered with - as they would normally log in on any day.
That should be the only issues users will experience. And some of you may have experienced that already.

So if you're typically logged in all the time, it would be best now to write down your password because you'll have to enter it again at some point over the next 24 hours. If you don't remember it and have problems logging in when this occurs, you can have a new one sent to you.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up. Thank you!

VillanovaFan & I Told You So, Suck on THAT

Were VillanovaFan & I the only people who predicted this team would be good this year, in the midst of last year's debacle? Are we the only visionaries around here? Can Stnk actually predict anything in college basketball, or does he just post stats that have already happened? Does a 14 year old know more about basketball than he does? These are all questions we should ponder at night.

I remember getting ridiculed for writing a post around February of last year, in which I argued that we would finish in the top 3 in the AAC and be ranked in the AP Top 25 sometime this year. I also said our Defensive Efficiency would improve in a similar fashion to how SMU had improved from 2012-13 to 2013-14. They went from 151st to 19th, but they were around 35th when I wrote the post.

I've been tempted to unleash an "I Told You So" tantrum after how much crap I caught on this board last year, and now I did. I predicted we would make the tournament last year, and admittedly I was wrong. So I understand why folks ripped me for predicting success this year. BUT...,

All teasing aside, it has truly been awesome to see what this team is capable of since Jesse Morgan has joined the lineup. It's amazing his addition has been able to open up the floor for other players. He has such a quick release that teams have to stay close to him & show respect.

Right now, KenPom has us ranked as the 25th best defense & 166th best offense, but that does not truly reflect how good this team has been the past 3 weeks since Morgan joined the lineup. We were worse than 200th in Offensive Efficiency before Morgan joined the lineup. Even with some very ugly offensive performances since, we are now quickly climbing the Offensive Efficiency rankings. When you score the ball & can set your defense, the opposing team's FG% decreases compared to when they are playing off your missed shot. As a result, the addition of Jesse has made both our offense AND defense better.

And my goodness, can Jaylen Bond rebound or what? He's averaging almost 12 rebounds/game since Kansas. It's probably too late to make up for the slow start this year, but I would love to see him average 10+ rebounds per game next year. Not bad for a guy who, as many pointed out, averaged 2 points & 3 rebounds in his career at Texas.

New walk on

Michael Ockimey from Valley Forge Military Academy tweeted yesterday that he's "proud to be a Temple Owl." We've confirmed that Ockimey will be a walk on and is enrolled for the Spring Semester. Ockimey had an offer from Toledo coming out of Monsignor Bonner but ended up at valley Forge.


As a reminder, the dead period ends Thursday. So things are about to pick up a little, recruiting wise.

This post was edited on 1/12 10:12 AM by Kyle Gauss

Michael Ockimey tweet

Temple Basketball vs. SMU NYC Game Watch at Duke's Murray Hill

Winners of 5 straight - including vs. #10 Kansas and defending National Champion UConn - Temple is one of the hottest teams in the nation. Looking to enter the Top 25 for the first time this season, the Owls take on a highly talented SMU team led by Hall of Fame coach Larry Brown.

Join fellow Temple alumni at Duke's Murray Hill in NYC on Wednesday, 1/14, as the Owls take on SMU on CBS Sports Net (opening tip 7p).

As usual, Duke's will feature the game on numerous TVs with sound included!

***The Temple University Alumni Club of Metropolitan New York is also proud to offer one FREE DRINK to each alum in attendance!***

When you arrive at Duke's, please be sure to mention that you're with the Temple University Alumni Association to receive a complimentary wristband giving you access to all game-day specials.

Duke's Murray Hill is located at 560 3rd Avenue (corner of 3rd Ave. & 37th Street).

Temple Basketball vs. SMU NYC Game Watch at Duke's

MISSING CHAZ WILLIAMS

As I had suggested earlier, a quick look at numbers suggests that Jesse Morgan is missing playing with Chaz Williams. Williams is 23rd in NCAA history is assists, and often set up Morgan with open looks. In the 2 years that Morgan played with Williams, he shot 38% overall from the field and 36% from 3. He also averaged 2 free throw attempts per game.
In a small sample at Temple, he is shooting 32% from the field and 32% from 3. He is only getting to the line 0.9 times per game.
I wonder if he is taking more forced shots here without a great distributor setting him up.
ADVERTISEMENT

Filter

ADVERTISEMENT