Temple falls to 0-2 in conference play at the hands of SMU

In order to come away with a win on Wednesday, Temple was going to need to match SMU’s intensity on both ends of the court.

And while the Owls did, it just wasn’t enough.

Anytime Temple (1-2, 0-2) inched closer to taking the lead during Wednesday afternoon’s 79-71 loss, SMU had an answer.

While Temple was able to hold Kendric Davis in check for most of the afternoon, SMU’s table-setter came alive with the game on the line.

Davis, who scored 11 second-half points, was able to attack the basket better, thus proving why he was a preseason all-conference selection. The junior guard hit a mid-range rising jumper with 3 minutes, 31 seconds remaining to give the Mustangs a commanding nine-point lead.

“Overall, I thought we did a pretty good job against him,” Temple head coach Aaron McKie said following Wednesday’s loss. “He’s an all-conference player. I thought Jeremiah [Williams], Tai [Strickland] and everyone else that guarded him, they took on the challenge and did it by committee.

“We tried to mix up some coverages against him.Any time he was in a ball screen, we wanted to show on him and use our size against him. I thought we kept him pretty quiet, but late in the game, he made a few big shots against us. ... And that’s what you expect out of players of his caliber.”

McKie’s assessment of Temple’s defense wasn’t as kind. The second-year head coach believed his players failed to differentiate from knowing the shooter, as opposed to the driver. This led to the Owls rotating off the shooter to go running at the driver, and the driver would then pass to the shooter, he said.

Temple held an SMU team averaging 85.2 points per game to 79 points. While Temple outrebounded SMU, the Mustangs were better equipped to take advantage of second-chance points. On top of that, the visiting team pushed the tempo, grabbing the ball off the glass and getting it up the floor for transition baskets.

The Owls worked to match that energy, often finding themselves in poor positioning or having to recover in rotations.

It came at the cost of the Owls getting in foul trouble yet again. Jake Forrester, who arguably put together one of the better games of his Temple career, picked up his fourth foul with 10 minutes remaining in the game.

The light did briefly shine on Forrester’s game offensively, cleaning up the glass and moving bodies inside, leading to three straight buckers from the junior forward. He finished Wednesday’s contest with seven points and 12 rebounds.

As for Damian Dunn, he fouled out for the second consecutive game. And while he did a much better job of initiating contact against SMU than he did Houston, he paid the ultimate price by exiting the game early.

Down 74-67 with 1:45 remaining, Dunn drove to the paint. Rather than dishing out to a wide-open Williams beyond the arc, he chose to go for contact. Dunn was called for a charge and the Owls felt his absence in crunch time, as much as they did for large stretches of the game.

With Dunn on the bench late in the game, the Owls went scoreless for 3:25 at an earlier junction of the second half, allowing the Mustangs to gain control of the game, even after Temple cut the lead to just two points.

The redshirt freshman guard picked up two quick fouls in the first half and while he put up 15 points in 21 minutes, his lack of awareness cost Temple when it needed him the most.

“It’s important for me to be [out] there, of course,” Dunn said postgame. “Even if I do happen to get in foul trouble like I did today, I’m going to pick up the guy behind me, coming in to sub me out the game. ... I’m gonna keep doing my best to stay out of foul trouble.”

“We emphasize it every day,” McKie added when asked about Temple’s foul troubles. “Sometimes you get caught up in the speed of the game, with guys sticking their hands in there. I’m comfortable with when guys are driving in there, us getting our hands up in the air and forcing players to make shots over the top of us and not giving them the best of both worlds. If we don’t foul, that’s fine, but if not, make those guys finish over the top of our heartland.”

On the other end of the court, the Mustangs made it difficult for the Owls to operate down low. It led to Temple settling for ill-advised shots from beyond the arc. The most egregious example of this was when true freshman wing Quincy Ademekoya chucked up a deep 3-pointer with a large chunk of the shot clock still remaining. SMU was able to get a quick defensive rebound, leading to Feron Hunt quickly finishing on a fastbreak at the other end, giving the Mustangs a nine-point lead.

All in all, the Owls shot 9-of-31 from beyond the arc, averaging just 29% from deep. While senior forwards J.P. Moorman II and De’Vondre Perry combined for 17 of the Owls 71 points, they also went 2-of-13 from 3-point range.

The only benefactor from that range was Brendan Barry, who scored a season-high 17 points, shooting 5-of-10 from beyond the arc. So far, the Dartmouth transfer has done everything the Owls could’ve hoped for and more, as he’s learned on the fly. He’s been a legitimate threat from deep range and is the best pure shooter in the team’s rotation.

Going forward, Barry can’t be the only one knocking down shots for the Owls.

“I thought we took too many contested 3’s,” McKie said. “We didn’t get it and check it out timely to get the 3’s that were getting the string set on a ball, just to clean the crease. It’s something that we have to continue to work on, when we’re playing with a good base and sharing the ball and we’re taking the good 3’s, the 3’s that we want to take, not the rushed ones.”

Temple will need to start shooting better if it wants to claw back into American Athletic Conference play. While there are no moral victories, the Owls never appeared to be the same level of overmatched against SMU as they were against Houston.

That said, they’ll need to put Wednesday's loss behind them rather quickly as they prepare for Saturday’s showdown against Memphis.