{"id":423,"date":"2009-11-18T17:20:08","date_gmt":"2009-11-18T22:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=423"},"modified":"2009-11-18T17:28:26","modified_gmt":"2009-11-18T22:28:26","slug":"encouraging-start-for-the-owls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=423","title":{"rendered":"Relatively Encouraging Start for the Owls"},"content":{"rendered":"

I know the baseball season just ended, but it’s college hoops already (I guess World Series trips don’t give us nearly as much of a “break,” huh?).\u00a0 Everything is different under Dunphy than it was under Chaney.\u00a0 Under Chaney, the Owls were almost always the last team in the country to start their season, and often didn’t play a home game until around Christmas.\u00a0 Under Dunphy, they play early and often, including the requisite mid- and low-major teams as “warm-ups” (I’m not opining either way on Chaney’s schedule decisions versus Dunphy’s, just making observations).\u00a0 Well, it’s only November 18, but the Owls are already two games into their season.<\/p>\n

Now with back-to-back NCAA tournament trips under their belts, the Owls should return to, at least, a class of team that handles mid-majors early in the season.\u00a0 Well, they did just that in their season-opener at the Carpenter Center in Delaware.\u00a0 The Owls put up 76 points in a 20-point victory over the Blue Hens.\u00a0 Ryan Brooks had 23 points, and Lavoy Allen pulled down 15 rebounds.\u00a0 If this Temple team is going to secure its first at-large bid in recent memory, they are going to have to be carried by those two because the depth on this team is a bit questionable.\u00a0 The newest Owl starter is Juan Fernandez, who is going to be a special player, and could be complete a solid three-man nucleus.\u00a0 Fernandez, who is so calm and collected on the floor, added 14 points and 5 assists in 29 minutes.\u00a0 The other two starter, Michael Eric (the big, raw Nigerian) added 7 points, and Luis Guzman chipped in with 8.\u00a0 Two freshman, Rahlir Jefferson (a pure freshman from Chester) and Ramone Moore (the 2007 Public League MVP, who had an academic redshirt in ’07-08 and a medical redshirt last year) both played a solid 14 minutes.\u00a0 Personally, I think that both are pretty decent options off the bench, with Moore being a potential starter by conference play.<\/p>\n

Then yesterday, the Owls got to tussle with the nationally-ranked Georgetown Hoyas, down in DC.\u00a0 Temple struggled to get going in the first half (as did the Hoyas–it was 19-13 at the half), but played a really solid second half.\u00a0 They outplayed the Hoyas for much of the second half.\u00a0 “Big Smooth” Craig Williams hit a game-tying three-pointer with 4:52 left, and it looked like the Owls were going to pull this one out, as they took and extended their lead in the closing minute.\u00a0 But, back-to-back three-point plays by G’town’s stud sophomore, Greg Monroe, pulled the game close again.\u00a0 The Owls did have the ball and a 1-point lead with :23 seconds left, when Ramone Moore was sent to the line for a one-and-one.\u00a0 Moore missed the front end, and Monroe drove the length of the floor for the go-ahead basket.\u00a0 The Owls got one last chance, but a Guzman turnover ended the upset hopes.<\/p>\n

As good as Brooks was against Delaware, that is how bad he was yesterday, scoring just 6 points on 2-14 from the field.\u00a0 Allen, however, had another big day on the glass, with 14 more rebounds (and 12 points).\u00a0 Guzman didn’t score in 36 minutes, but Moore picked up some slack with 8 off the bench.\u00a0 All in all, it was a solid effort for the Owls, but they will not be beating any good teams on the road with only 2 FGs from Ryan Brooks.<\/p>\n

I would have to say that most encouraging thing about the first two games is the play of Lavoy Allen.\u00a0 Now, a junior, he can no longer be talked about as “going to be good;” he has to be “good.”\u00a0 And, he has been really<\/em> good in the first two games.\u00a0 One knock on him has been a bit of a lack of aggression on the glass, but he has 29 rebounds in two games, so maybe he’s solved that problem.\u00a0 Allen has the talent to be a first-team all-A10 performer, so maybe this is the year he shows it.\u00a0 The Owls will need that because you can expect Brooks to be streaky, and there is no way they can rely on Fernandez just yet.\u00a0 Allen has to be the rock on this team this year.<\/p>\n

It should be interesting in the next week, as the Owls come home for 4 games in an 8-day span.\u00a0 They host two really good mid-majors, Siena (Nov 21) and Ball St. (Nov 24), before hosting the Philly Hoop Classic at the Palestra on the 27 & 28.\u00a0 The Owls drew two big-conference teams with the ACC’s Virginia Tech on Friday and St. John’s, from the Big East, on Saturday.\u00a0 If the Owls can take care of business (no small task) this week and enter the weekend 3-1, they can really put together a nice non-conference resume with wins in either or both of the games at the Palestra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I know the baseball season just ended, but it’s college hoops already (I guess World Series trips don’t give us nearly as much of a “break,” huh?).\u00a0 Everything is different under Dunphy than it was under Chaney.\u00a0 Under Chaney, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,681],"tags":[840,834,833,46,835,274,831,832,837,839,838,830,836,843,842,52,841],"class_list":["post-423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college-hoops","category-quick-pitch","tag-ball-st","tag-delaware","tag-fran-dunphy","tag-georgetown","tag-greg-monroe","tag-john-chaney","tag-juan-fernandez","tag-lavoy-allen","tag-luis-guzman","tag-michael-eric","tag-rahlir-jefferson","tag-ramone-moore","tag-ryan-brooks","tag-siena","tag-st-johns","tag-temple","tag-virginia-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}