We wrap up the OOC portion of the season in Philly in 2 games that will make most on these boards happy, against Temple and La Salle. Saturday we tip off against Temple at 2pm. Temple is average this season, they started out rough, then stepped up and now are back in a 2 game slide. They come in at 6-5. They are 2-0 against the CAA (Elon and Delaware) and are 2-1 against Philly schools, with Nova still on their docket. They beat UPenn and La Salle and lost to St Joes (by 19).

Temple runs, typically, an 8 man rotation, with 10 guys averaging double digit minutes. As a whole Temple does not shoot real well (39.9% overall and 26% from 3). Khalif Battle is the clear star here. He is averaging 21.4 (of their 66 as a team) points per game. He is a 6'5" sophomore guard and he is shooting 53.8%, and 48.8% from 3. He started at Butler then transferred to Temple last season. He has improved every single season. He is going to be a nightmare for us to defend. He is highly efficient. The rest of their offense comes from their 3 other starters (13.2, 9.4, 9.1 points respectively). Damian Dunn is a freshman 6'5 guard who has struggled shooting so far to get to his 13 points a game, however he rebounds well at 5 rebounds per game. Nick Jourdain is a 6;8" freshman who appears to be their best rebounding big man.

Temple is a methodical team (low scoring) who takes care of the ball (12 turnovers per game). They are getting 6.5 steals per game, so we will need to take care of the ball. Lazy passes will get intercepted with the length of their guards, which will lead to easy run out points in transition. Temple is ranked 117 in adjusted defense per kenpom so we will have to work for our shots. If shots are not falling (like recently) we could be in some trouble. If we hit our shots, this is a very winnable game. Its too early for Vegas odds, but I would guess it will be Temple favored by 4 or 5. I will go with our recent shooting woes paired with our road woes against decent teams. I hope I am wrong, since this is not a good Temple squad.

Drexel NET: 194
Temple NET: 183

Drexel- 65
Temple- 81

Battle is out for the season with a knee injury. Since his injury, Temple got beat pretty badly by SJU and looked terrible last night against UCF.

I see this as a very winnable game for Drexel if (and it's always an if with them) they make their open 3 point shots.

Until somewhat consistently proved otherwise, a road game against a top 200 opponent gets put down as a loss.

(12-16-2021 09:43 AM)J.B. Wrote:  Battle is out for the season with a knee injury. Since his injury, Temple got beat pretty badly by SJU and looked terrible last night against UCF.

I see this as a very winnable game for Drexel if (and it's always an if with them) they make their open 3 point shots.

Ah that makes sense. Without him there it makes sense why they got blown out the past two games. This has to be a win with that info (that I missed). A loss to this Temple team without their only good player would scream disaster. Or it would say last year truly was a fluke and we are still a below average team

I revise my prediction:

Drexel- 75
Temple- 68

yeah temple has looked terrible the last 2 games. they seem to just want to jack up threes and not make them. i'll take us by 4 but expect a rock fight similar to all of our city games except maybe we get into the 60s/70s.

honestly i'm mostly just watching for the postponement due to covid issues. college basketball doesn't seem to be getting hit as hard as hockey and the nba. it probably won't be long though. reading that article about coppin state makes me wonder how they made it through all that travel without any problems.

(12-16-2021 12:26 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  honestly i'm mostly just watching for the postponement due to covid issues. college basketball doesn't seem to be getting hit as hard as hockey and the nba. it probably won't be long though. reading that article about coppin state makes me wonder how they made it through all that travel without any problems.

Last season, Drexel learned that when you take Covid seriously and don't hang around with large groups of people you don't know who are unmasked, then good things can happen. Once the season got started, Drexel practiced all season long while everyone else shut down. During the tournament, they were the most prepared team. Hopefully they build off of last year, and continue to take it seriously.

in a world that wasn't driven by money they would shut all the sports down until the first or second week of january and tell everyone to have a good time with their families (at gatherings with vaccinated family members and essential personnel only).

(12-16-2021 10:19 AM)dan10 Wrote:  Temple team without their only good player

We suck, but that's definitely not fair.

(12-17-2021 10:06 AM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(12-16-2021 10:19 AM)dan10 Wrote:  Temple team without their only good player

We suck, but that's definitely not fair.

Probably so. But I still think there is some truth to it. He makes your team tick. We are supposed to be better than we have showed. If we can't beat one of your worst squads, then we have real issues. Losing this game would send off alarm bells to me.

(12-17-2021 11:06 AM)dan10 Wrote:  Probably so. But I still think there is some truth to it. He makes your team tick. We are supposed to be better than we have showed. If we can't beat one of your worst squads, then we have real issues. Losing this game would send off alarm bells to me.

Well, to be fair Dan, I think every game sets off your alarm bells! LOL.....

(12-17-2021 12:44 PM)Timer Wrote:  

(12-17-2021 11:06 AM)dan10 Wrote:  Probably so. But I still think there is some truth to it. He makes your team tick. We are supposed to be better than we have showed. If we can't beat one of your worst squads, then we have real issues. Losing this game would send off alarm bells to me.

Well, to be fair Dan, I think every game sets off your alarm bells! LOL.....

Ha. I dont think that to be completely true. I do have expectations higher than some. I just get frustrated by poor play from an experienced team. I hope we are mentally tough enough to get by the stigma of a name on the jersey.

Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

(12-18-2021 12:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

COVID in our program.

(12-18-2021 12:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

You got to enjoy free food. We got an email that they will be processing refunds on Monday. We got your text right after we left on the subway, so the postponement cost us $4 on the subway and the travel time.

(12-18-2021 01:34 PM)J.B. Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 12:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

You got to enjoy free food. We got an email that they will be processing refunds on Monday. We got your text right after we left on the subway, so the postponement cost us $4 on the subway and the travel time.

One of our posters was in the middle of driving from Long Island, so I think your complaint is pretty silly.

(12-18-2021 06:10 PM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 01:34 PM)J.B. Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 12:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

You got to enjoy free food. We got an email that they will be processing refunds on Monday. We got your text right after we left on the subway, so the postponement cost us $4 on the subway and the travel time.

One of our posters was in the middle of driving from Long Island, so I think your complaint is pretty silly.

The media posts reads that "The schools will look to reschedule at a later date". A "later date" will likely be 2 years from now, since they already have plans to pay at the Palestra next year. I don't think that it's fair to anyone to try to reschedule for right after Christmas, nor should they be trying to squeeze it in during conference play.

(12-18-2021 06:19 PM)J.B. Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 06:10 PM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 01:34 PM)J.B. Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 12:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

You got to enjoy free food. We got an email that they will be processing refunds on Monday. We got your text right after we left on the subway, so the postponement cost us $4 on the subway and the travel time.

One of our posters was in the middle of driving from Long Island, so I think your complaint is pretty silly.

Hmmm...seemed like a mere observation to me.

the nice woman who was running the event told us not long after we got there. not too many people were there yet but everybody was cool about it. i didn't hear any idiotic "covid is a hoax" outburst. it was setting up to be a really nice event. "appetizers" was more like a full out lunch with burgers, hot dogs, cheesesteaks, sausage, and wings. they had some dessert and fruit stuff too. both the alumni events have been great so they're doing a really nice job.

everyone in philly is mad that washington didn't forfeit the game vs. the eagles. it's mostly the nfl's fault for saying they would force forfeits. you get a different perspective when it's your team though. nobody is immune to this so you can't blame any particular team.

i just hope the caa is more proactive (and reactive...or anything) and makes more of an effort to get games in this conference season. my move would be to shut things down until mid january and then add as many makeup dates as they can. i believe there are weekends open since it's a pretty silly schedule to start with so many weeknight games.

(12-18-2021 06:10 PM)JHG722 Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 01:34 PM)J.B. Wrote:  

(12-18-2021 12:32 PM)hiroshimacarp Wrote:  Game is off. They just told us at the alumni reception. Really good food I’ve been depriving myself of so it doesn’t bother me. Hope everyone is ok.

You got to enjoy free food. We got an email that they will be processing refunds on Monday. We got your text right after we left on the subway, so the postponement cost us $4 on the subway and the travel time.

One of our posters was in the middle of driving from Long Island, so I think your complaint is pretty silly.

yeah you should relax with the tape of your win over penn state in football. i listened to that after climbing mount fuji.

we drove about 2 hours from mechanicsburg with our two kids and got turned away while we were eating at the liacorus center. turned out to be a great day actually. my son loves trains and we hadn't been on the subway in a while. admittedly that's not the safest activity right now but aside from the homeless person coughing a bit without a mask...we were ok. trains weren't too crowded.