Game 21: Temple 1/25 7:00 ESPNU

[Lobot]

Temple is sneaking up the conference standings while no one is looking and stand at 10-6 and 3-2 in conference. They had a horrible start to the season in OOC tournaments and then ran off 5 straight when they got home. Most of their wins have been close affairs and a lot of their losses have been blow outs. The Owls have had 4 games postponed by Covid, including their two most recent games against WSU and USF. When we get to Philly, they will not have played for 2 weeks.

Their best player, Khalif Batlle only played in 7 games this season. He fractured his foot in December and is out for the remainder of the season. That leaves the scoring load to Damian Dunn. This team is very guard heavy and they all rebound well so boxing out well will be key and that's something UC hasn't done well this season. They don't have a ton of height but Nick Jourdain and Emanuel Okpomo will see time if we go big. Temple is a very young team with one senior and mostly freshmen so the rebuild under Aaron McKie is still in effect.

I have not seen the status of Viktor Lahkin for this game. He's still dealing with a hip problem last I heard. The knee that John Newman injured in the last game hasn't been mentioned by the staff and I haven't seen anything on his availability either. Rob Banks is still out to my knowledge.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...stats/_/id/218

[coach]

He did have a couple buckets in the game I believe both in the first half. He just so slow to react around the bucket for a kid his size it's hard to try and ride him.

[richard k.]

I agree with Coach's assessment of our current situation. When they do rarely throw it inside it is usually a weak off balance miss or a turnover. Also very little chance for an offensive rebound. I would go more with VL and OO and fade Ado and Kavel. I'd like to see what the two guys that may be here after this year get more run. I know VL needs to stay healthy and both need to limit the fouls. I also like Newman's tenacity. They need more of that on this team.

On Bearcat Insider they has a segment with Ado which basically came down to him admitting his entire college career has been to block shots and nothing more - not much defense away from the rim and certainly no offensive game whatsoever - so when he is on the court we are in fact playing 4 on 5 when we have the ball. If you can't throw it inside is it any wonder we spend most of the game chucking up 3's?

[Gmann]

I agree with Coach's assessment of our current situation. When they do rarely throw it inside it is usually a weak off balance miss or a turnover. Also very little chance for an offensive rebound. I would go more with VL and OO and fade Ado and Kavel. I'd like to see what the two guys that may be here after this year get more run. I know VL needs to stay healthy and both need to limit the fouls. I also like Newman's tenacity. They need more of that on this team.

[coach]

We need to stop shooting all of those 3 pointers. Better shot selection & shots closer to the basket would be a big offensive improvement.

Unfortunately with no inside offensive threats or consistency, this is the offense they are pretty much stuck with. Vik has to get back into shape. I think he was out over a week of practice, and until he proves he can consistently catch and control the ball it's hard to have him in there for any extended period of time. Koval isn't an inside guy, and Ado is so painfully slow with his offensive game it's unfortunately a team with no balance at all. They're going to have nights like this given their limits unfortunately. If i had to change the rotation I'd try Ody for more extended time as he has the most inside game of our limited choices. However, he has picked up fouls in some of the games so that may be an issue. JD and Hensley just are not athletic enough against most teams to score inside. JD doesn't jump well, and his footwork is slow. DDJ and MAW tried quite a bit to drive the ball to the hoop, but they're undersize which is also Saunders issue. They have to knock down perimeter shots. The game Tuesday though was lost on the defensive end in the second half. It was awful. Very, very rarely stopped them and when they didn't score a bucket we fouled them. We need to get stops as a lot of our offense when it is working comes in transition. We rarely had any transition in the second half of Tuesday's game.

Plea to JD, quit complaining and dramatizing every foul that gets called. You're inviting more from the majority of officials.

[leo from jersey]

And how I miss Chuck. He was one of the best.

think he could do a little work with the bigs.

[bearcatbret]

And how I miss Chuck. He was one of the best.

[Tom Alverson]

I have one thing to say about this game:

I don't know Chuck. I just don't know.........

[leo from jersey]

Davenport close to shooting from Mid Court...Seriously!

I saw that and figures that is just JD being the non team player JD. Since he has just made three , he is good from anywhere.

[BigDaddyCornHusker]

We need to stop shooting all of those 3 pointers. Better shot selection & shots closer to the basket would be a big offensive improvement.

I'm under the impression that 3 pointers are CWM's offense. His subs are to find the hot hand.

[richard k.]

Weather. Team got stuck in Philly and didn't fly back until this morning.

After that exhibition do we want them back?

[Lobot]

Weather. Team got stuck in Philly and didn't fly back until this morning.

[Lobot]

I'm going to be negative for a second here.

Bad:

Offense
Effort in the 2nd half
Shot selection
Coaching
Substitution pattern
Referees
Camera angle
Arena
Court floor


Did I miss anything?

I missed one.

Announcers

[bearcatjd]

We need to stop shooting all of those 3 pointers. Better shot selection & shots closer to the basket would be a big offensive improvement.

[Lobot]

I'm going to be negative for a second here.

Bad:

Offense
Effort in the 2nd half
Shot selection
Coaching
Substitution pattern
Referees
Camera angle
Arena
Court floor


Did I miss anything?