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Maryland 76-Temple 69

Temple played quite well in a number of respects - despite playing without their starting Center - against the #5 team in the country. A 7 point loss to a top tier team is certainly respectable, and the results of this Q1 game will boost Temple's rankings and their Strength of Schedule, and may be helpful with the NCAA selection committee.

On the plus side, Temple out-rebounded Maryland 39-32, and had positive margins in assists (15-12) and steals (7-4).

However, Maryland's scoring total was 14 points higher than any prior opponent had scored against Temple (prior average: 61.3 ppg). The Terrapins hit a solid 38.5% of their 3 pt shots and 46.7% of their 2 pt shots.

Despite entering the game as the #1 ranked D1 team in ball control, (10 TOs per game), Temple committed more TOs (15) in the game than did their opponent (14). Maryland also blocked 6 Temple shots, compared to only 2 TU blocks.

Maryland's defense did a great job of shutting down Temple's two top scorers, and the team as a whole had difficulty scoring against Maryland's zone defense.*

While hitting 35.5% of their FG3 attempts, the Owls hit only 33.3% of their FG2 attempts. Notably, Temple has only scored 71+ points once this season.

On the positive side, 50 of Temple's points were scored by 4 Temple players who had their top scores of the season (A. Moore 22 pts, Moorman 14 pts, Scott 8 pts, Forrester 6 pts), helping to keep the game close with season-high point totals.


Details from the box score:

Temple players:

The team's play was a study in contrasts, with 4 players fully meeting or surpassing expectations, 3 having average or slightly subpar games, and 3 playing their least productive games of the season, by a country mile.

--JP Moorman had his best overall game of the season, with 14 pts, 9 rb, 2 ast, and 1 blk in 29 minutes.

--Alani Moore II also played his best game to date (22 pts, 4 rb, 3 ast, 2 stls in 34 minutes.

--RS Sophomore Jake Forrester played quite well, scoring 6 pts and adding 2 rebounds, playing 12 minutes in his first game with the Owls.

--Freshman PF Arashma Parks made a very solid contribution - per minute played - with 4 rebounds and 1 pt in 4 minutes.

--Monty Scott's play suggested that he may be emerging from his prior shooting slump, scoring 8 pts on 3-6 shooting inside the 3 point arc.

--Quinton Rose had 9 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals in 30 minutes of play, partially offsetting his low FG% (.250).

--Junior F De'Vondre Perry contributed a modest 7 pts, 3 rb, 2 ast, 1 stl, and 1 blk in 22 minutes, in perhaps his least productive game to date.

--Nate Pierre-Louis (NPL) had - by far - his least productive game of the season, with 3 pts, 5 rb, 4 ast, and 1 steal in 34 minutes. This contrasts markedly with his prior season average of 15.8 pts, 10.8 rb, 3.5 ast, 3.5 st. & 0.8 blk in 30.8 mpg.

--Nate's brother Josh (JPL) rarely played and had his least productive game to date, with 0 pts, 0, 0, 0, etc. in 3 minutes. Notably, he had led the team with 15 points in the team's game @ USC.

--After a fine performance in Temple's prior game, Justyn Hamilton astonishingly contributed only 1 rebound in 12 minutes of play, in his least productive game thus far. This performance is consistent with a pattern of inconsistent play in Temple's first 4 games.

--Neither Damion Moore nor (F) Damian Dunn were able to play, due to injuries this Fall. Fortunately, both are expected to return to the lineup within the next few weeks.

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Maryland's D was able to hold Temple's leading scorer to only 3 points on 0-7 shooting. Two other TU players went a combined 0-4, and Q Rose hit only 25% of his FGA (4-16), scoring only 9 points with 16 shots. Only two Owls scored in double figures, and only three hit 50%+ of their shots.

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NOTE:

*Temple has had prior difficulties against zone defenses, as they did in their NCAA game with Belmont. Coach McKie was well trained to play zone D at Temple, and should be able to teach the players how to operate well vs a zone, but in order to teach them well, he's going to have to teach his own players how to play a good zone D, so they can at least practice against zones in scrimmages.

Yes, Maryland has bigs inside who made it difficult for Nate to get to the rim. Nate should have known that and avoided going to the rim in half-court sets. He foolishly went to the hoop and missed all seven of his shots.

McKie should have instead utilized Nate’s outstanding skills in the open court, by having Nate start fast breaks off of defensive rebounds. He did not do that.

Nor did McKie have Nate play in the face of opponents so that he could make steals and lockdown who torched Temple in the second half.

This game showed that Temple has better scorers than Rose and NPL who finshedca combined 7-23 shooting for the game. They should not be the focal point of Temple’s offense.,Rose missed open shots and also drove to the hoop when nothing was there. He had an awful game. His missing 12-shots on 4-16 from the field, 1-7 on three’s was unacceptable, as well as his making 4-turnovers, and five fouls. He’s not worthy of being the focal point of the offense.

When Temple holds Maryland to scoring but 28- points in the first-half as they did, I wouldn’t criticize a Hamilton unless he did something bad on defense. Could care less who rebounded the ball in first half as as Maryland’s scored was being held to scoring less than 30 points.
Maryland avoided going inside because of Hamilton. That in itself proves he was doing his job. If Hamilton had played more in second half, I don’t think Maryland would have scored 47-points. McKie should not have abandoned Hamilton after he played so well in the first-half.

Thought Parks played terrible in second half with two turnovers and some fouls.

Forrester played ok in his first game offensively, but committed too many fouls. Not going to praise either Parks or Forester’s defense with Maryland scoring 47-points in the second half and allowing Maryland to make more than half their 2-point attempts in the second-half.

Regardless of Maryland’s ranking, this was a game Temple should have won by a good margin. Mckie’s failure to play a pressure defense, and both stop the three-ball and make more steals, was simply not acceptable. Temple has been averaging 12 steals per game. But only had eight steals in Maryland game. If Temple wants to win it must utilize Nate’s skills and try to make more steals. That did not happen and Temple lost a game they should have won.

The coaches need to review video of the last five minutes of the game as Temple’s time management needs to be improved as well.

Thanks for adding a few of your observations of the game, which I wasn't able to watch.

Fortunately, there is a 20 minute highlight video on youtube that I am starting to watch.

You and I have very different ways of watching and interpreting games, so our views of player performances vary quite a bit. My approach is mostly based on statistics & box scores, some radio broadcasts, and fewer chances to catch the video broadcasts.

Both kinds of information are important, and even necessary. I think it was accurate to say that Parks was productive, with 4 rebounds and a block in 4 minutes, even though you pointed out a couple of second half mistakes. So I started out with a high grade and will lower it, but still think he gave a B or B+ type of performance, for a freshman at least.

When it comes to Rose, I could watch every single game, and we would still disagree. On the one hand, his judgment is very problematic at times, his game hasn't matured the way we would hope, and his prospects as a potential professional player have declined and are nowhere as high as some expected them to be 3 years ago. Beyond that, even his once astounding ability to score at will near the basket is but a small shadow of what it was formerly.

On the other hand, despite his continuing shooting woes, he contributed 9 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals vs. Maryland. Combined with his points, his total productivity was 24 pts/rb/ast/stl in 30 minutes, which translates to 0.80 positive stats per minute played.

That translates to 32 positive stats per 40 minutes, which is equal to Shizz Alston's statistical contributions per 40 minutes last season. Thus, on a game by game basis, Rose played as productively as the second best player in the AAC (Alston) did in an average game last season.

However, I will agree, at least, that he shouldn't get an "A" evaluation in this game, because he had 4 turnovers and hit only 25% of his shots.

I would knock him down a peg or so to about a B+ (but not lower), for this reason: if Rose hadn't played 30 minutes, those 9 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals weren't going to come from NPL or JPL or Hamilton (1 rb, 0 pts, 0 asts, 0 blks, 0 stls), who all had poorer performances vs MD. Perry played a little better, but was far less productive, statistically. Parks could have gotten 9+ rebounds with added minutes, but probably not 9 pts, 4 asts, or 2 steals. Moorman and A Moore couldn't have played much more or harder than they did, and Forrester's playing time had to be limited, and he only scored 2 pts in 12 minutes. JPL did absolutely nothing, statistically in 3 minutes.

So I say that Temple needed Rose to play every minute that he did in order to have even a chance to win that game, given the fact that Nate and Josh and Justyn were extremely unproductive, statistically.

Every guy on this team has a vital role to play. Rose is not our best player. He might not even be the third best player. But there's no other player on this team, right now, who could take his place in the starting lineup without having adverse consequences for the team.

So you view him as a complete detriment who shouldn't even start, and I see him as a talented but significantly flawed and underachieving player who must nevertheless play a solid 25+ mpg in order for the team to have any shot at the NCAA tournament this season.

Another response is that practically everyone is impressed with the job that Coach McKie has done to date. I don't know if you concur or not.

However I was struck that you seemed to be putting the blame on Temple's HC for the fact that Nate didn't play MD opponents in their faces, the same way that he has usually done.

It seems very unlikely to me that Coach McKie would have gone out of his way to ask Nate to play looser defense in this particular game. It wouldn't seem to make sense, since anything he might have said didn't seem to help Nate play better defense. Indeed, if he had said anything about loosening up on defense, he would have had ample opportunity to change his mind and ask Nate to tighten up the defense at halftime.

A more parsimonious (simpler) interpretation would be that Nate just had an atypically poor overall performance, defensively, as well as offensively. He's a human being, and humans are not always capable of giving their ultimate effort, for a thousand possible reasons.

Moreover, Coach McKie actually got quite a good performance out of his team, considering that they were playing the #5 team in the country, kept the game close all the way, and only lost by 7 points. It was a particularly good game coaching job when one considers, further, that his top player had one of the worst games in his career, that his #2 scorer hit only 25% of his shots, that his starting big man had nothing but a single rebound (0-1-0-0-0) in 12 minutes, that the team had to play without its only true Center, and that his top scorer in the previous game put 0-0-0-0-0 on the board.

To date, besides a few debatable but minor glitches along the way, I can't see any reason to give Coach McKie anything lower than an "A" evaluation at this point. It seems to me that Temple is extremely fortunate to have hired a HC of his quality. As I see it, he is very reminiscent of a young John Chaney who took over the program in 1982 and brought it into national prominence within a single decade. I wouldn't be surprised if he is able to return Temple MBB to the heights that the program achieved for two decades under that predecessor and mentor.

Rose and NPL are not good jump shooters. As such they should not be the focal point of Temple’s offense. They are best going to the hoop, but couldn’t against Maryland who were strong inside.

Rose finished shooting but 4-16 from the field, and NpL 0-7 from
The field, a combined 4-23 from the field, while Alani Moore, was the hot shooter, shooting 7-11 from the field, and an astounding 6-10 on three’s. He was Temple’s hot hand, yet McKie decided to ride Rose and NPL instead.

Temple has a few defenses that it employs. The one defense that works the best is when Temple extends it defense and plays it’s in your face defense that leads to poor three-point shooting and turnovers. As guards are not use to that as that rarely happens. Add-in traps, and the defense becomes comes a nightmare.

Temple coaches realized that in earlier games. If you noticed Temple played an extended defense in the first half when the finished the half with the lead, and didn’t in the second half.

Temple concentrated on not allowing Maryland from going inside. They took 12-2’s, and scored on 5 of them. Hamilton’s presence deterred Maryland from going inside, and scoring poorly on two’s.

In the first half, Temple did not let Maryland shoot from the outside. Maryland took 13 three’s and made but 4. Maryland scored but 10 points inside and 12 points from the perimeter.

Temple took 7 foul shots and made 6, Maryland took 7 and scored 5-points. Maryland scored only 29 points in the first half.

Temple did cause 14 Maryland turnovers, but sqandered that away by committing 14 turnovers, the worse offender being Rose who saw his 4 turnovers turned into 8 Maryland points. Maryland won by 7 points. Rose has no handles, and came close to making other turnovers as well.

Temple made 8-steals while in other games they averaged 12 steals per game.

I feared that by Temple trying to stop two ball rather than three ball, Temple would be burnt in second half, and they were.

Temple in the second half did not extend it’s defense. Close-outs are a waste of time, as it fails To defend the three ball. Maryland scored 47 points in the second half. Cowan scored most of his 30 points in the second half. Both those things are on the coach. For if Alani and Nate had played in his face, Cowan would not have scored so many points.

Temple’s HC didn’t utilize Nate’s skillof making steals as he had in prior games.

Temple also went smaller in the second half, and without Hamilton playing as much, Maryland went more inside and shot 8-15 on two’s (16 points), and with Temple concentrating on stopping Maryland from scoring inside, Maryland 6-13 on three’s, and s cored 18 points to compared to the 12 points they scored in the first half.

Temple playing with inexperienced bigs in Parks and Forrester, and both fouling a lot along with Rose, resulted in Maryland taking 16 foul shots and making 13, and Temple taking 12 and making 8 free throws. Maryland enjoyed 5-point scoring advantage at the foul line in the second half.

Allowing Maryland to shoot 6-13 on three’s in them second half was unacceptable. Temple should have concentrated on stopping the three ball. Temple made the same in the LaSalle game in the second half. McKie should have learned from that. Hope he will from Maryland game.

Before the season started I complained that Dunphy last season allowed Rose and Alston and sometimes Nate to jack up too many shots when they are off. Rose shooting 4-16 and 1-7 on three’s is unacceptable. Same for Nate shooting 0-7. I place that on both the coach and players, as when better shooters are on the court they should shoot the ball. Alani should have shot more as he took but 11 shots, and was 6-10 on three’s.

This was game where Temple’ssecondary players shot far better than Rose and Nate. They are simple better shooters than both Rose and and should shoot more going forward.

Nate’s forte is getting to the hoop. He can’t do that against teams that can defend the paint. We witnessed that in the last two games. Temple has to put him in the position to make steals, and rebound and fast break, so he’s effectively against good teams.

One could tell that Temple was a much better team by the fact that Rode and Nate combined in shooting but shot but 4-23, from the field.

If Temple doesn’t do close outs and instead pressures the perimeter, Temple will be almost impossible to beat. Also having their other better shooters shoot the ball will help as well.

I give McKie, Ross, and Clark a loads of credit for installing the pressure defense. Just want to see it played often.Give him credit for increasing number of three’s shot last two games.,

Temple averaging only 70 points per game thru five games, and McKie has done nothing to fix that.

He has to have Alani shoot alongside Scott and Nate. Rose should come off the bench as Rose’s unwarranted favoritism has to end.

If Alani, Scott, and Nate are in backcourt and Temple plays a pressure defense, Temple should do quite well.

Regarding the game coaching, I agree that Coach McKie didn't make the adjustments required to shut down Cowan's scoring.

Hopefully, he will watch the game film carefully and will realize that Temple could have won that game by putting Temple's best defender on Cowan and defending him much more tightly.

Also agree that Temple can't win key games against strong interior defenses by sending Nate into the core of the defense over and over again.

Nate can score bushels of points against weak interior defenses, but he has too much trouble finishing when he can't get a clear path to the basket.

How to address this problem? For one thing, Coach McKie might have to rely on Scott to play more minutes and score more points against those kinds of teams, provided that he penetrate more effectively or hit a higher FG3%.

Another option would be to help NPL work on his perimeter shooting. He has some potential, as he hit 33.3% of his 3 pt shots in conference play last season.

Regarding Temple's PFs, Forrester and Moorman clearly did the most to help keep the game close.

The highlights didn't show any examples of Hamilton playing effective interior defense, but it probably did hurt not having a 6'10"+ Temple player on the floor for most of the second half.

However, Coach McKie had to contend with a dilemma, considering that Hamilton added nothing beyond his defensive play, other than a single rebound, while making his share of mistakes when he was in the game. It's hard to make a convincing case that Hamilton should have played many more minutes than he did, trying to prevent Maryland's big men from scoring in the low post.

Since guard Cowen scored most of Maryland's points, the best way to win the game probably would have been to defend Cowen tightly enough to reduce his FG%.