Temple men's basketball nonconference schedule announced
Temple released its men’s nonconference basketball schedule Wednesday afternoon.
Apart from two December games against programs that played in the NCAA Tournament last season, it’s not one of the more noteworthy slates the program has assembled.
The Owls, under the guidance of first-year head coach Adam Fisher, will play at VCU Dec. 16 and against Nevada Dec. 21 in the first-round of the Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu. The Rams won the Atlantic 10 conference tournament last March to advance to the NCAA Tournament, and Nevada, which finished fourth in the Mountain West Conference, got into the tournament via an at-large bid.
The nine nonconference Division I teams the Owls are guaranteed to play finished with a combined record of 145-170 last season and an average NET ranking of a little less than 192. Aside from Nevada (48) and VCU (54), Temple’s seven other guaranteed nonconference opponents all finished with NET rankings outside of 125. Ole Miss, which will play at the Liacouras Center Nov. 22, finished 13th in the SEC last season with a NET ranking of 129.
And for the first time since the late Hall of Famer John Chaney’s first season on North Broad Street in 1982-83, Temple will be playing a regular-season game against a Division-II opponent. Bloomsburg, which finished 1-25 last season and last in the PSAC East Division standings, will play at the Liacouras Center Dec. 6.
The American Athletic Conference also didn’t do the Owls any favors. When the league announced its schedule pairings back in July, Temple found out it would not get a home game this season against new conference opponent FAU, which advanced to the Final Four this past season. The Temple Owls will play the FAU Owls in Boca Raton.
It’s still possible that Temple could get a slight boost to its nonconference slate on both a local and national level. If the Owls beat Drexel Nov. 14 and La Salle Nov. 29, they would emerge as the top seed in their Big 5 pod and likely draw Villanova or perhaps an improved St. Joe’s team to compete for the Big 5 title in the new championship format, with the tripleheader taking place Dec. 2 at the Wells Fargo Center.
If the Owls get past Nevada out at the Diamond Head Classic, they could wind up playing 2023 NCAA Tournament team TCU in the semifinals. And if they really went on a roll and got to the finals, they could face St. Mary's, which went 27-8 last season and beat VCU in the NCAA Tournament.
For now, Fisher will have to very much take one step at a time with a roster that lost several notable players to the NCAA's transfer portal, including Damian Dunn (Houston), Jamille Reynolds (Cincinnati), Zach Hicks (Penn State) and Nick Jourdain (Memphis.)
