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

[GoBearcats31]

Temple is currently #125 in the NET. Top 135 road win = Quad 2 win ( / need to avoid bad losses anyways)

[GoBearcats31]

Drew Carter (?) and Jon Crispin on the call on ESPNU
https://gobearcats.com/documents/202..._at_Temple.pdf

[GoBearcats31]

Drew Carter (?) and Jon Crispin on the call on ESPNU
https://gobearcats.com/documents/202..._at_Temple.pdf

Also for what it's worth, Newman is listed as a probable starter. Either that was, for lack of a better term, laziness in preparing the game notes or something we do not know. I'm leaning somewhere closer to the former.

[Lobot]

Normally we'd find out about Newman's status at the weekly press conference but since we play tomorrow, I don't think there is one. The weekly Radio show is Thursday night this week so I think we're out of luck until warmups.

[GoBearcats31]

Jon Rothstein is reporting BOTH John Newman and Viktor Lakhin are available tonight

[Rufus]

That is good news. We may just need all hands on deck to put away the Owls.

[GoBearcats31]

Normal starters, including Newman

[GoBearcats31]

The 3-ball isn't falling tonight and the offense is struggling w/o it

This is an ugly game to watch and not just b/c of the terrible Temple camera angle. Both teams just throwing up junk and passing right to the other team.

[BearKatz]

1-9 on 3pt shots... and they just keep shooting them... very sloppy on Offense!

[GoBearcats31]

TV announcer keeps referring to Mason Madsen as Masden or Madsden

[GoBearcats31]

UC picks up its 10th foul to Temple's 4. Better hit some shots or Temple is going to take advantage from the line.

[GoBearcats31]

A lot of 1-on-1 plays. DeJulius and Madsen just buried threes, but both were done while avoiding teammates. Glad they went in but sheesh.

[GoBearcats31]

Good end to the half, 13-1 run to go up 12

[Oldtimer_UC_fan]

Saunders needs to slow down and stay in control.