Temple routs La Salle 73-57 in its Big 5 opener

Defense and ball movement led Temple to its first Big Five win of the season Wednesday night in a 73-57 rout of La Salle at the Liacouras Center.

The Owls entered Wednesday’s matchup without the services of backup center Emmanuel Okpomo and point guard Tai Strickland. Both had minor injuries.

Sophomore guard Khalif Battle led Temple with 22 points on 7 of 13 shooting, and redshirt freshman guard Damian Dunn added 16 points to go with six rebounds, four assists and two steals.

Battle, however, left the game midway through the second half after stepping on the foot of La Salle guard Josh Nickleberry. The Owls’ leading scorer did not return to the game.

Key stats

Temple held the Explorers to 17 of 67 shooting while converting 28 of its 59 shots. The Owls also held La Salle to an 11-to-12 turnover-to-assist ratio in the game, scoring 14 points off La Salle’s turnovers.

One thing Temple head coach Aaron McKie emphasized in previous games was ball movement, telling reporters multiple times that he felt the ball was sticking too much.

Wednesday night, Temple assisted on 19 of its 28 field goals, the team’s highest percentage this season.

McKie described it as “a combination of ball movement and shot making. You can’t get assists if you don’t hit open shots.”

Temple’s margin of victory could have been bigger if the Owls weren’t still struggling from the free throw line, shooting 12 of 23 from the charity stripe.

Aside from free throw shooting, Temple had one issue they were lucky didn’t hurt them: rebounding. The Owls allowed 13 offensive rebounds in the first half, and 23 in total.

Something to look for in Temple’s next game will be second-half production. The Owls went from shooting 50 percent from deep in the first half to 10 percent in the second, totaling 27.8 percent for the game.

To add some perspective, Quincy Ademokoya and walk-on senior Colin Daly logged minutes in this game, and freshman Zach Hicks took the last five minutes as an opportunity to get some shots up.

Temple also committed 26 team fouls Wednesday night, getting into the double-bonus in both halves.

“I’m still looking for that complete, 40-minute game,” McKie said.

Turning point

Throughout the course of the game, the Owls were able to turn La Salle’s scoring droughts into runs of their own. The Explorers led once in the game at the 19:07 mark of the first half. After that, they never led again. Actually, La Salle never stayed within nine points of Temple after the Owls’ second run of the game.

Temple got out to an early 9-3 lead, charged by five Dunn points and a Dunn assist to send the Owls into the under-16:00 media timeout on a 7-0 run.

La Salle called a timeout down 22-9 with 9:40 left in the half. Temple was on an 8-0 run that was scored entirely by Battle, his first eight points of the game. The run extended to 9-0 going into the under 8:00 media timeout and stretched out over a 3-minute, 47-second span. The Explorers hadn’t scored in 4 minutes and 13 seconds and had five turnovers in a span of more than six minutes. Eight of Temple’s nine field goals were assisted on.

At the under 4:00 timeout, Temple still led 31-19. At that time, La Salle got into a rhythm at the charity stripe, going 6-of-8 from the free throw line since the under-8:00 timeout.

Big Five emotions

Things got chippy when some shoving action involving Nick Jourdain, Battle, Khalil Brantley and Anwar Gill ensued. After Jourdain fouled Brantley and Brantley protested, the two exchanged words, resulting in Jourdain brushing Brantley off. Anwar Gill then pushed Jourdain, and Battle came to his teammate’s defense, resulting in a shoving match. Jourdain, Brantley, and Gill were assessed technicals.

Both McKie and La Salle coach Ashley Howard attributed the game’s emotions to Philadelphia’s Big Five tradition. Howard also attributed the scrum to his team’s position in the game.

“I think us getting our butts kicked probably added to that,” Howard said.

Temple went into the half up 39-22 with Battle leading all scorers with 15. It was clearly the Owls' best first half of the season. The Owls were clicking on both sides of the ball, shooting 14 of 27 from the field while holding La Salle to 6 of 33 shooting, including 0-for-10 from three. Ten of La Salle’s 22 points came from free throws.

La Salle went into the half on a scoring drought of just a little more than five minutes, missing its last eight shots and only making 1 of its last 12 entering the break.

This marked the second-straight game where La Salle looked awful in the first half. In Sunday night’s loss to Villanova, the Explorers only scored 17 points in the first half compared to Villanova’s 42. In a battle of teams that get off to slow starts, Temple won.

“We really struggled to score,” Howard said. “Second game in a row. Temple played great defense.”

Between the under-16:00 and under-12:00 timeouts, the Explorers went on another drought that lasted 3:02, going 0-for-7 in that frame. Then Battle went down holding his ankle going into the timeout but stayed in the game. Temple’s leaving scorer hadn’t been subbed out of the game yet at that point.

Clearly limping, Battle then checked out and headed to the locker room.

“We’re still evaluating him right now,” McKie said of Battle. “We’re not sure. He’s been having some foot issues with his heel.”

Temple led by 65-36 at the under 8:00 timeout. Dunn stepped up in Battle's absence, scoring seven points in 90 seconds once Battle was subbed out.

“We already had separated a little bit,” Dunn said. “My mentality was to keep being aggressive knowing that Khalif went down.”

McKie also added that, as it stands, Strickland and Okpomo will most likely miss Saturday’s game against Penn also.

When asked about his role if Battle and Stickland are ruled out, Dunn said, “I think we’re ready for that,” referencing Temple’s “next-man-up mentality.”

Maybe the guards aren’t the answer for Friday’s game. It could be junior center Jake Forrester.

After seeing his minutes reduced for the past few games, Forrester played a season-high 21 minutes Wednesday night, tallying 12 points and eight rebounds.

“I just was always taught to fight through adversity, Forrester said.” I had an opportunity to stay in the game and I tried to make the best of it.”

Temple’s next game will be a 4 p.m. tipoff Saturday at home in another Big Five game against Penn.