By Paul Gotham
BUFFALO, NY — Wednesday night the Temple Owls held an opponent under 40 points for the first time in three years. In so doing, the Cherry and White improved to 4-0 for the first time in more than a decade. Just don’t expect head coach Fran Dunphy to bubble over with excitement. The seventh-year coach isn’t as concerned with what his team is doing as opposed to how the Owls are going about accomplishing it.
Anthony Lee scored 10 and pulled down seven rebounds while Temple held the Bulls under 33 percent shooting from the field en route to a 54-39 final. This coming after Temple squeaked by Delaware at home, 80-75 – a game in which the Blue Hens hit more than 56 percent (29-51).
“Our defense was improved,” Dunphy said after Wednesday night’s road win. “I thought they had a lot of open looks in both halves that didn’t go down for them. Our defense was good, but I don’t think it was great.”
Measuring Temple’s defense with UB could get tricky. The Bulls have stumbled to start the season and committing turnovers is part of the struggles for Reggie Witherspoon’s Bulls. UB turned the ball over 24 times a week ago in a loss to Canisius. Against Temple, the Bulls committed 17 errors.
Dunphy’s more immediate concern seemed to rest with his team’s offensive play. After shooting 50 percent (12-24) in the first stanza, the Owls eroded into a 6-of-27 performance after break.
“We got to stay within our own character and our own personality,” Dunphy continued. “We got to know who we are a little bit better than we did tonight on some plays.”
Temple’s only basket in the first seven minutes of the second half came on an alley oop dunk when Khalif Wyatt led Scootie Randall on a two-on-one situation. Other than that, Temple shot 0-for-11 to start the half.
“We were posting forwards 12 feet from the basket. It’s a new thing for me,” Dunphy said with wry smile. “If we’re posting them up and the guy’s throwing a shot in the basket, well we’re going to use that play a lot. There were a couple of post-ups we didn’t get anything out of but poor shot selection. We had another of our student-athletes shoot a 12 foot jump hook. That’s a hard shot to make.”
The Owls also struggled handling the ball at times. The first five minutes of the game produced five turnovers. As if drawn into the fray by their counterparts who turned the ball over on 17 occasions , Temple committed three miscues in the first three minutes after halftime of a game which UB’s Witherspoon best described as “not a beauty contest.”
“We didn’t take care of the ball very well in the first half as well,” Dunphy added. “I’m shocked that we only had 15 turnovers. I thought we had more than that.”
Despite that, Temple managed a win on the road and their first win in the city of Buffalo since 1977. All this without playing its best basketball.
“We did do a good job of getting our hands on a number of balls,” Dunphy noted. “We’ll count the deflections on film, and see how many we got of those. That’s a big stat for us.”
UB had taken two of the last three contests with the denizens of North Broad Street. Last year, Temple needed overtime and an Anthony Lee tip-in for a victory.
Much has changed since last year. The Bulls graduated Dave Barnett, Zach Filzen, Titus Robinson and Mitchell Watt from a 20-win team. The Owls have their share of losses with Juan Fernandez, Ramone Moore and Michael Eric moving on to play professional basketball. Not to mention the departure Aaron Brown who transferred.
It ended up being Temple who has done a better job of weathering roster changes. In the pre-season, Dunphy spoke highly of his team’s depth. That was on display at UB’s Alumni Arena with eight players getting double-digit minutes including seven guys playing 20 or more minutes.
“We prevailed,” Dunphy said when talking about his team’s ability to grind out a victory. “It was really a physical game.”
Temple hosts Wagner, Saturday afternoon. A 2 p.m. tip is scheduled at the Liacouras Center. Temple’s schedule during the month of December includes a Big 5 battle with Villanova and contests with Syracuse and Duke. The Owls also play at Kansas on January 6th.
UB travels to St. Bonaventure for Big 4 matchup on Saturday night. Game time is scheduled for 7 p.m.
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