The Owls overcame a 23-point hole and trailed by three late in the game before losing 84-77.
PHILADELPHIA: Even if the Temple basketball team is playing hard, winning is difficult when the squad is playing hard against itself. The Owls rallied from a 23-point hole to tie the game three times late in the contest against Memphis on Thursday night, but they lost to the Tigers 84-77 at The Liacouras Center after committing seven turnovers in the last five minutes of play.
“We need to be proficient with the basketball,” Coach Adam Fisher bemoaned in the post-match remarks. They have a reputation for stealing the ball and breaking free. We therefore had a conversation about it. We refer to it as early-easy. We must stand up, take it up, locate the open man, and move it to the next side of the floor.
With former Owl Nick Jourdain making a return trip to take on his old colleagues, the building was electrified. Jourdain’s three spectacular dunks had the audience in awe as Memphis raced to a commanding lead.
Temple struggled to handle fullcourt pressure and had no answers for Jourdain, David Jones (23 points) and Jahvon Quinerly (19 points), the top scorers for the Tigers, who made 6 of 7 baskets and led their team 45-27 going into the locker room.
But once Fisher gave them a similar halftime score, the Owls found their mojo again and launched an 8-0 run to start the second half.
Fisher stated, “I grabbed my laptop, which is not something I do usually, and I showed them the South Florida score.” “They (Memphis) played South Florida; with eighteen minutes remaining, South Florida is down 22 points. I then showed them the team’s final score on the video, showing them that South Florida had won the match.
Memphis continued striking and Temple kept punching back in the second half. Additionally, the Owls rediscovered their range and made 6 of 12 three-pointers after the half, despite making only 1 of their 15 tries in the first half.
After falling down 63-46, Hysier Miller and Zion Stanford made three-point plays, and during a 14-0 run, Miller and Shane Dezonie also made three-pointers to get the team within three. Jones scored three baskets in a row to help the Tigers maintain their lead, as the Owls began to struggle with turnovers.
Jordan Riley turned it over three times and Jahlil White twice in the last five minutes. In addition, Miller and Dezonie committed errors that would have eliminated the Owls from the game, but Quinerly failed to make a shot in the second half, and Memphis consistently missed free throws. (The Tigers made 16 of 31 foul line attempts in the end.)
After a Miller three to make the score 68-65, Jones responded with a three of his own. With less than a minute remaining, behind 80-72, Riley made two free throws, Memphis missed two, and with 27.6 seconds remaining, Matteo Picarelli made a long three-pointer to cut the deficit to 80-77.
However, Dezonie mishandled the ball after Jones made one of two free throws, and the Owls dropped their eighth straight game.
“I anticipated it would be a challenging match,” Memphis Head Coach Penny Hardaway remarked. “When we were up 23, I’ve watched [Temple] play so many games where they’ve been up. They just didn’t close, therefore they should have won five more, maybe seven, games by now. I’m not sure what their record is.
Prior to its upcoming match on Sunday afternoon against Charlotte (14-8, 8-2), Temple is at 8-15 and 1-9 in the American Conference. Memphis advanced to 17-6, 6-4 in the AAC, after securing a crucial road victory and flying home.
Jourdain was pleased with himself for winning and for making it back to North Broad Street.
“Seeing Broad Street made me feel like I had been there 500 times; it was so real,” he remarked. “I thought, ‘Oh my god.'” It was really real to see the city and everything I went through.