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Wednesday notebook: Owls still searching for first conference win

Temple’s next opportunity to secure its first conference win will come at a lunchtime matinee, as the Owls host UCF Thursday at the Liacouras Center in the second contest of a three-game week.

Temple played at SMU this past Monday, will host UCF on Thursday and will travel to ECU on Saturday.

Senior captain J.P. Moorman II told reporters Wednesday that having three games in one week, after everything his team has been through up to this point, is “like heaven.” Especially for some of the underclassmen who are itching to get opportunities to take the floor.

For some of the younger players, it’s been tough to find much of an offensive flow, which Moorman attributed to a lack of in-game experience. Once the Owls can consistently stay on the floor and find a rhythm offensively, the 6-foot-7 forward from Greensboro, North Carolina believes that side of the floor “will be dangerous.”

The Owls have played just four games through nearly two months and have dealt with multiple team pauses since the start of their schedule.

Temple’s most recent pause, in response to a positive test in the team’s Tier 1 personnel, forced the postponement of the first two games of the new year. The former being a home game against Memphis and the ladder a road trip to Tulane.

Temple head coach Aaron McKie said rescheduling the Memphis game is something they’re looking into down the road and it could result in playing the Tigers on back-to-back nights. As for Tulane, the second-year head coach explained they haven’t found anything in the schedule yet but it’s definitely in the discussion.

Here are OwlScoop.com’s notes and observations from Wednesday afternoon’s media availability.

J.P. Moorman on freshmen guards Damian Dunn and Jeremiah Williams:

“I know what [Damian] brings to the table, I know he’s going to find his rhythm eventually and his shots are going to start to fall. He’s done a good job on defense as well, that’s probably going overlooked. So has [Jeremiah]. He’s been a pretty good on-ball defender for us containing point guards pretty well. I’ve been very impressed with him.”

Moorman on Temple’s offensive struggles:

“We’re not where we want to be yet offensively but that will come with time and reps and game experience. We got a lot of guys who don’t have a ton of college game experience. And with the way, our season has been going we haven’t been able to flow like we wanted to. But once we start to find a rhythm, I think we’ll be dangerous offensively.”

Temple head coach Aaron McKie on sophomore transfer guard Khalif Battle:

“He just had a bad pull with his hamstring and those things can be tricky. For him, OK, we’re trying to work him in and get him going and he’ll pull it again. I just wanted to shut him down and get him completely healthy because those things can bother you for a long period of time if you don’t pay attention to it…. We look at it every day and see how he feels. It’s one of those things where everybody’s body is different. Some people’s body’s just snap back a little faster. He must have really done some damage to his hamstring when he pulled it.”

McKie on opting for small-ball lineups:

"It’s feel. We got behind in a game and we weren’t making shots or scoring so I think sometimes when we move J.P. to that five-position it gives us better spacing out on the floor. It makes us small but in my opinion, if you’re tough and if you’re physical you can get in there and compete and rebound the ball. We’ll have our disadvantages but I think in some cases we will have advantages when we go small.”

McKie on what impact Battle’s return will have on Dartmouth grad transfer Brendan Barry:

“It would be great to just get him out there and have another guy with some foot speed and see how those guys play together. You got Brendan on one side and Khalif on another side. We gotta get him in some shape and we got to work him in. We got to consistently all practice together for it all to come together. That’s the tough part about it. Our season has been so fractured. And we didn’t have time in the summer to work with these guys. We didn’t really have consistent time to work with these guys in the fall and so we’re just trying to mix-and-match and put it together and play some basketball games and win.”

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