Temple improves to 2-0 in Big Five play with 81-72 win over Penn

After losing its last two matchups to Penn, Temple staved off a second-half comeback attempt by its Big 5 opponent to avoid dropping three-straight to the Quakers for the first time since 1979-82 with a 81-72 win Saturday at the Liacouras Center.

In the absence of leading scorer Khalif Battle and backup guard Tai Strickland, redshirt freshman guard Damian Dunn and junior center Jake Forrester stepped up, with both scoring career-highs of 27 and 21 points, respectively.

Forrester, who has been prone to foul trouble in his career, played a career-high 32 minutes, while Dunn tied his career-high in minutes with 37.

Penn head coach Steve Donahue said Temple played “a much more flowing, fluent offense than they have” in Battle’s absence.

Temple head coach Aaron McKie and Dunn didn’t expressly agree with Donahue, but they did acknowledge the team’s ball movement Saturday.

“I thought we got it hopping around a lot more,” Dunn said.

McKie offered a different perspective, saying, “the offense always looks good when you make shots.”

Forrester saw his minutes increase for the second game in a row, logging 32 minutes in total. He credited it to his work in practice throughout the season.

“Take practice like games and it makes the games easier,” Forrester said.

Dunn, who had 17 first-half points, was the guard expected to become Temple’s leading scorer in Battle’s absence, having been the Owls’ primary option in games Battle missed last season.

Dunn answered the call.

“I took it upon myself to step into that role,” Dunn said.

Key stats

With Donahue’s analytics-heavy offense, Temple found success in just running the Quakers off the three-point line and waiting for them in the paint in the first half, holding them to 4 of 14 shooting from three, something McKie wanted Temple to focus on.

“We wanted to run them off the line and make them play in a crowd,” McKie said.

In the second, the Quakers began to stretch the floor and knock down some threes, making 5 of 12.

Temple also shot 4 for 14 from three in the first half. However, the Owls got to the free throw line four more times than Penn, making four more free throws, and also 10 for 16 from two, as opposed to Penn’s 6-for-17.

A running hook from Sage Tolbert forced a Penn timeout at the 15:08 mark with Temple up 16-6. Freshman small forward Quincy Ademokoya, who started in place of the injured Battle, had six points, a steal, and an assist up to that point. His six points were from two threes on the right wing. He would go on to finish 2 of 9 from the field.

Dunn was fouled going to the rim, sending Temple into the under-12:00 media timeout up 20-10. The two free throws were Dunn's sixth-straight points for the Owls coming out of the under-16:00.

One thing Penn can hang its head high on is rebounding. They only lost the rebounding battle 33-32 despite missing big men Nick Spinoso and Max Lorca-Lloyd.

Turning point

Temple went on a 2-minute, 33-second scoring drought at the 4:21 mark. It was enough for Penn to go on a 7-0 run over a 1:49 stretch and make McKie burn his first timeout of the game. Max Martz had five of the seven with a putback layup and a three to trim Penn’s deficit to 32-25.

Both teams ignored the referee's shot clock violation call and headed to their respective locker rooms. Temple led 39-27, having been up by 12 for a good portion of the game up to that point. The Quakers went into the half of a 3:15 scoring drought. Temple only scored four points in that half, missing an opportunity to push the lead.

Forrester, who had nine points in the first half, picked up where he left off after the break. From the 18:38 to the 15:40 mark of the second half, the junior center racked up seven points, including a dunk and an alley-oop, and a steal.

Forrester said his father texted him before the game, saying “dunk everything.”

Forrester also pointed to his chemistry with freshman point guard Jeremiah Williams for the big man’s success in the paint Saturday, saying, “It’s good to finally see it play out in a game.”

Penn’s Michael Wang and Jordan Dingle did all they could to keep the Quakers competitive in the second half. After shooting 1 of 6 in the first half, Wang scored 17 second-half points. At one point, Wang had scored or assisted on 9 of Penn’s 12 heading into a Temple timeout with 6:08 remaining. Temple led 68-55. Dingle finished with 22.

At the 5:03 mark, Penn was on a 7-0 run over a 2:01 span before a Forrester and-1 stopped it. Penn followed that up with another 6-0 run to cut the lead to single digits for the first time in the second half.

With the style of play that Penn operates, McKie was anticipating a strong second-half push.

“I kept trying to tell the guys… ‘they’re going to make a run because now they’re starting to play faster and they’re spacing you out a little more, looking to make those threes,” McKie said.

Ultimately, the Quakers’ comeback efforts came up short in the end, having to resort to late-game fouling.

Looking ahead

Temple’s second-half performance is worth noting, giving up several scoring runs and going on a few droughts of their own. Temple improved its shooting split to 56 percent from 46.7 in the first half. However, they allowed Penn to boost its split from 32.3 percent to 57.6.

At the end, Temple closed out the game, which is always a positive thing to take away for a team as young as the Owls.

Temple’s next game is a Tuesday night tipoff at Vanderbilt. The status of Strickland and freshman center Emmanuel Okpomo is still unknown for Tuesday’s matchup.