A coach’s opening statement in a press conference can sometimes be filled with coachspeak.
Adam Fisher’s aptly summed up Temple’s 83-75 Big 5 loss at La Salle Saturday evening.
“They kicked our butt from start to finish,” the Owls’ second-year head coach began. “Their toughness was better than ours. It's my fault. We weren't ready to go. It's on me.”
Had Temple (4-3) won at La Salle’s new John Glaser Arena, it would have moved on to play St. Joe’s next Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center in a rematch of last year’s Big 5 Classic championship. Instead, the Owls will play Villanova in the third-place game.
Beyond their own miscues, turnovers, poor rebounding and shot selection, there were Temple fingerprints all over Saturday’s loss, albeit at the other end of the floor.
La Salle guard Corey McKeithan, who averaged a career-high 8.0 points per game at Rider last season, dropped 28 on Temple Saturday on 10 of 19 shooting to go with four assists, three rebounds, two steals and no turnovers. McKeithan credited his emergence and development to La Salle’s coaching staff, which is of course led by former longtime Temple coach Fran Dunphy.
And although Jahlil White shot just 3 of 13 against his former teammates, the Temple transfer played some of his best basketball down the stretch, when the Owls cut what had once been a 15-point deficit down to four. He forced a turnover on Jamal Mashburn Jr. with a little more than two minutes to go and the Explorers leading by six, and he hit two late foul shots to push La Salle’s lead back out to six with 26 seconds left.
Dunphy might have considered it a good sign when his team missed 30 shots in the first half (17 of 47) but still led by nine at 42-33, thanks in large part to 13 offensive rebounds that helped give way to 20 second-chance points.
“Yeah, we did (rebound well),” Dunphy said. “And then [Temple] sat in the locker room at halftime and said, ‘Let's not give up so many offensive rebounds,’ and they didn't. They did exactly what they needed to do. They made their run, and we just had enough to weather the storm.”
After La Salle’s lead grew as large as 15 at 67-52 after a McKeithan layup at the 10:09 mark of the second half, Temple responded with a 21-10 run to get within four at 77-73 with 1:49 remaining following a driving layup from point guard Quante Berry. But the Owls got no closer than that the rest of the way.
Berry played the best game of his Temple career in the loss, posting career highs of 18 points and 15 rebounds, including five on the offensive glass. Even with his efforts there, La Salle (6-2) still outrebounded the Owls, 45-42, as freshman forwards Babatunde Durodola and Dillon Battie combined for just five rebounds in their 27 minutes combined.
The only blemish on Berry’s stat line was his five turnovers, which came on a day when the Owls coughed up 15 to La Salle’s seven.
La Salle also held Mashburn, the Owls’ leading scorer, to 6 of 19 shooting and 15 points, marking the first time the New Mexico transfer and preseason first-team all-conference selection was held below 20 points this season.
Temple as a team shot an abysmal 1 of 16 from three-point range, with forward Steve Settle (13 points) and Mashburn combining to go 0-for-6 from beyond the arc. And while Mashburn heated up a bit in the second half, he still muddled his way through his worst game of the season while the Owls were also never able to get Zion Stanford going. The talented sophomore wing forward scored just four points on 2 of 6 shooting in 13 minutes off the bench.
While shots can come and go, Temple’s continued rebounding woes and play in the paint, especially on the offensive glass, are a bit concerning after seven games. And with Villanova’s Eric Dixon waiting for the Owls next weekend with his 25.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game on 53% shooting, things aren’t going to get any easier.
Temple had a week to prepare for this game and responded with one of its worst efforts of the young season. The Owls will get a week again, this time to prepare for the Wildcats.
A lot of things, including the rebounding, must get better.
“It’s been a point of emphasis every day since we practiced last Monday,” Fisher said of the rebounding, “but obviously the message wasn't delivered. I say it all the time to our guys, ‘If you're in a classroom and everybody gets an F on a test, teacher probably didn't do a good job.’ So I gotta look at myself. I didn't do a good enough job. We'll go back. We'll change up some of our rebounding to make sure we try to continue to get better.”
Fisher was asked how much of that is coaching and how much of it is mentality.
“It’s both,” Fisher said. “ We gotta have a heart, we gotta have a fight, and we can't think somebody else is gonna go get it. I think we did some of that. ‘I boxed out my guy.’ Well, we need all five guys. [La Salle] did a great job and sent five to the glass. They played really well here at home, and they did a nice job tonight on the glass.”
Watch Saturday's postgame press conference with Adam Fisher here.