Temple vs. Misery game
Temple led the game mid-way through the 2nd half, but still found a way to lose this important game on their home floor by 10 points.
That was a pretty awful collapse to spoil an otherwise brilliant start to the season.
Part of the problem was that only 8 Owls played. JPL, Parks, D Moore, & Dunn were all MIA, suggesting that Parks may now also be on the injured list.
Being unable to go at least 9 deep took away one of Coach McKie's major assets.
Moreover, only 3-4 Temple players performed relatively well, from a productivity standpoint, led by Rose & NPL, and followed by Hamilton & Forrester, who played A- and B+ quality games, with a B level game by Scott.
Temple's other 3 players (A Moore, Moorman, and Perry) played very poorly. The loss to Missouri is largely due to their subpar play, in a total of 75 minutes of playing time.
In their 72 minutes on the floor, all that A Moore, Moorman, & Perry were able to contribute were a total of 3 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and 2 steals (only 0.39 stats per minute played by those 3 players), compared with 0.765 stats per minute by NPL.
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If this is a sign of things to come, than Temple may well drop out of the top 100 in short order, and the team's once promising prospects could be dashed before the injured players are able to play at full strength.
None of the remaining games before conference play begins are "gimme's."
We've gotta hope that at least D Moore or JPL or Dunn or Parks is able to return and give their HC a chance to play a minimum 9-man rotation within the next week.
Game 8 vs "Misery" wasn't the Head Coach's fault. He only had 8 scholarship players, and 3 of them played "miserably" against "Misery."
The only thing he could have done differently would have been to give his best walk-on a few minutes, to see what he could do.
Now, speaking of "misery" (or Missouri), I'm feeling miserable enough to get some shut-eye and try to sleep it off.
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