Gameday preview: Owls face USF in first round of AAC Tournament
When Temple takes the court against USF for the first round of the American Athletic Conference tournament, it’ll mark a program first.
The Owls have never played the same team in three consecutive games. That changes Thursday at noon on ESPNU.
After a 15-day pause, Temple will be back in action to tip off the AAC tournament in Fort Worth, Texas. The Owls elected to enter a “bubble” following multiple positive COVID tests within the program. Temple saw its two final regular-season games get canceled and rather than rescheduling a tune-up game prior to the conference tournament, the Owls prepared for a team they’ve already seen twice before.
USF handed Temple an 83-76 loss at the Liacouras Center on Feb. 21. The Owls returned the favor three days later with a convincing 18-point win over the Bulls at the Yuengling Center. Now that the season series is tied, something will have to give as both teams eye a potential second-round showdown with top seed Wichita State in the next round.
The biggest factor for the Owls in their previous matchups against USF has been Khalif Battle. The sophomore guard has scored a combined 54 points on 18-of-37 shooting from the field while going 7-of-17 from beyond the arc. Battle is coming off one of his most efficient games of the season, in which he scored 22 points on 9-of-15 shooting, adding six rebounds and four assists.
Battle has stepped in for an injured Damian Dunn in Temple’s starting rotation and is now leading the team in scoring.
As Aaron McKie prepares for his first conference tournament as Temple’s head coach, it’ll be the first litmus test for his largely youthful program. Senior captains J.P. Moorman II and De’Vondre Perry are the only players on Temple’s roster that have experience playing in the AAC tournament. And they are two seasons removed from a surprising quarterfinals exit at the hands of Wichita State.
Moorman and Perry will have another chance to match up with Wichita State if the Owls advance past the first round. But Temple’s conference tournament journey begins with USF on Thursday at noon on ESPNU.
“I think we got enough in the room if we can put it together for a weekend we can make it happen,” McKie said during Monday’s media availability, “but it starts with Thursday and it starts with South Florida.”
Injuries
Dunn has missed Temple’s last two matchups against USF, as his knee injury has held him out for three consecutive games. The redshirt freshman guard, who is averaging 13.8 points per game, sustained the injury during Temple’s 71-69 loss to Cincinnati back on Feb. 12.
Whether Dunn will be able to suit up for Thursday’s contest remains to be determined. He is currently designated as questionable, according to McKie. While Dunn has begun to participate in more live-ball workouts, the Owls likely won’t have a definitive answer until soon before tipoff.
The Bulls could be without two key players in starters Alexis Yetna and Caleb Murphy. USF head coach Brian Gregory said both players would be ‘questionable’ for Thursday’s contest.
Yetna is working his way to get back on the court after suffering an ankle injury during Temple’s 65-47 win over the Bulls on Feb. 24. The redshirt junior forward is averaging 9.5 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.
As for Murphy, he’s dealing with a knee and wrist injury, which he suffered in USF’s recent loss to Memphis. The freshman guard, who was named to the AAC all-freshman team, is averaging 8.8 points per game and has scored a combined 19 points in 59 minutes played against the Owls this season.
3 Keys to the Game
1. Rebounding battle
USF is one of the biggest teams in the conference and the scouting report is headlined by a size advantage over Temple. In both matchups, the Bulls hauled in 15 offensive rebounds. The Owls don’t score at a high enough rate to allow for those kinds of extra opportunities. If Temple can keep USF off the offensive glass, it can limit extra possessions which should translate to the scoring column.
“For me, number one is rebound,” McKie said. “I think we have to be great at doing it. That’s one of their strengths. Attacking that glass, on the offensive end, getting into the paint and throwing the ball. We have to rebound the ball and we have to win the paint battle against those guys. If they’re winning that offensive rebound battle and they’re winning that paint battle, we have no shot against those guys. They’re a big, physical team.”
USF has the third-best rebounding margin of any team in the conference at +3.8. Temple, on the other hand, ranks sixth at -0.5. Which team gets the advantage on the boards, specifically offensive rebounds, should be in a comfortable position to advance to the quarterfinals.
2. Turnover Margin
Temple has been plagued by excessive turnovers for much of its season. Turnovers played a pretty hefty role in the Owls’ six-game losing skid, four of which were lost by two possessions or less. They rank dead last in the conference in turnover margin, giving up the ball 2.33 more times per game than opponents.
Many of the Owls’ losses came as a result of significantly fewer shot attempts from the field in direct correlation to the number of times they turned the ball over. In Temple’s 72-66 loss to Tulsa on Feb. 16, the Golden Hurricane got off a whopping 13 more shots from the field including seven more 3s. A few weeks later in the Owls’ 83-76 home loss to USF, the Bulls took 17 more field goals.
“We were just careless with the ball,” McKie said following the loss to Tulsa. “They didn’t even pressure us and we were careless with the ball. It’s something we talk about every single day. It’s something we put on the board every single day… I thought we dug a hole for ourselves with that early on and we couldn’t recover from it.”
If the Bulls apply enough pressure to force double-digit live-ball turnovers it would give them the upper-hand in the third straight matchup between these two schools.
3. Streaky shooting
In Temple’s loss to USF, the Bulls shot 40.3% from the field and 39.1% from 3-point land. In the next matchup, the Owls won largely thanks to USF’s stark dip in shooting at 28.8% from the field. Much of Thursday’s game is going to come down to shot selection and which team can find the bottom of the net at a more consistent rate.
The Owls would be receiving a boost in the scoring column if Dunn is back in the lineup, returning from injury, but his absence wouldn’t necessarily equate with a loss. As for USF, the potential of playing without Yetna or Murphy could mean having to find alternative ways to get good looks at the basket.