Temple falls in 84-46 rout at No. 14 Houston
HOUSTON – Temple trailed for all but 24 seconds in its final true road game of the season at No. 14 Houston, and the Owls were soundly routed in an 84-46 loss at the Fertitta Center Thursday night.
The Cougars (26-4 overall, 15-2 in the American Athletic Conference) cut down the nets to celebrate their AAC regular season championship after the game. The Owls (16-11, 9-7), meanwhile, were left with a stinging reminder of how much they miss injured players like Khalif Battle and Jeremiah Williams and the gap currently separating the two programs.
On a night when he opted to go with a bigger starting lineup that included junior forward Sage Tolbert and freshman center Emmanuel Okpomo, third-year head coach Aaron McKie got just 18 points out of his starters, and no Owl scored more than 10 points. Second-year freshmen Jahlil White and Nick Jourdain had 10 apiece, and redshirt freshman Damian Dunn scored just five points on 2 of 7 shooting and committed four turnovers. True freshman point guard Hysier Miller missed all four of his shots and went scoreless in 30 minutes.
Houston senior forward Fabian White was dominant, scoring a game-high 26 points on 11 of 18 shooting, including 3 of 6 from three-point range, to go with six rebounds and two steals.
Sloppy start
Right from the opening tip, the Owls were facing an uphill battle. Houston opened the game on a 15-0 run, and Temple started 0-for-6 from the field with four turnovers six minutes in.
Houston got early dunks from Josh Carlton (11 points, eight rebounds) and Taze More (19 points on 8 of 13 shooting.) The Cougar faithful were engaged right away, and the defensive intensity from Houston caused plenty of problems for the Owls.
“Knowing how they play at home, I think we just had to match their energy and we didn’t do that about the first four or five minutes,” Dunn said.
Cougars’ size gives Owls problems
While the final rebounding numbers didn’t look too jarring, Houston still pulled down 15 offensive rebounds, which when combined with Temple’s 20 turnovers, made life difficult for the Owls.
“That was the game,” McKie said. “It’s always demoralizing when you play really good defense and they take a shot and they go up and they get the rebound and now you have to play defense again.”
Despite getting a shot to start, Okpomo, a transfer from Wake Forest, wasn’t much of a factor. In six minutes, he didn’t attempt a shot, committed two fouls and registered a steal. Tolbert had seven points in 16 minutes, with five coming at the free-throw line.
Dunn struggles again
For the second time in three games, Dunn, Temple’s leading scorer after Battle went down with a season-ending injury just seven games into the season, failed to score in double figures. The North Carolina native went scoreless in the first half and turned the ball over twice in the first 20 minutes as well.
“They were throwing out different types of coverages and kind of had me guessing a little bit,” Dunn said.
Despite Dunn’s struggles, McKie wasn’t about to single out his standout guard.
“Maybe I could have done some things a little bit different to help him out,” McKie said. “It just wasn’t our night overall.”
Turning point
Despite falling behind by 15 right away, Temple worked its way into the game as the first half wore on. The Owls at one point got within four points of Houston and trailed 33-23 at halftime.
However, Jourdain lost his cool early in the second half. With Temple still trailing by 10, the North Jersey native was whistled for an offensive foul, his fourth personal, just four minutes into the second stanza. Jourdain proceeded to boisterously dispute the foul call and was given a technical foul, which became his fifth personal and fouled him out of the game.
“We still were right there,” McKie said of the moment Jourdain fouled out. “They started to make shots in that second half and that ultimately hurt us.”
Temple would go on to endure a stretch of more than 11 minutes without a field goal in the second half, and the Cougars took full advantage on their way to a 38-point win.
“I just acted idiotic,” Jourdain said of the moment he fouled out. “It was just stupid of me to react that way. At the end of the day, the refs are just doing their job. I’m sure if I look back on it, the [Houston defender] was probably in position [to take the charge].”
Standout players
As Temple started to make inroads in the first half, Jourdain and fellow freshman forward Zach Hicks were leading the way. The duo came off the bench on Thursday night and combined for 16 of the Owls’ first 17 points as Temple tried to weather the early storm from the Cougars. But Hicks faded in the second half, and Jourdain was of course unavailable for most of the second half.
“We gave us a spark on offense,” Hicks said of the play from Jourdain and himself in the first half off the bench. “In the second half, Nick came out and then they started to come out on a run and we kind of fell into their trap.”
Hicks had all eight of his points in the first half.
Free throw shooting was another problem for the Owls on Thursday night, as they went just 17 of 28 from the line. Tolbert was the lone bright spot for Temple at the charity stripe, going 5-for-6 on free throws.
Temple will need a win on Sunday at home against USF to lock up a bye in the American Athletic Conference Tournament next week. Should the Owls get the job done, they’ll be in the same half of the bracket as the Cougars and could get a third shot this season at the top team in the conference.