In the Arena: Rock. Chalk. Owl. Temple Upsets #10 Kansas

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Plenty was made of Temple traveling the short distance down the SEPTA Broad Street Line for their only contest at the Wells Fargo Center this season. Coach Dunphy might want to look up some train schedules to the team’s road contests the rest of the way, because he’s going to want to bottle whatever got into his Owls on Monday night. Entering play having defeated 5 top-10 teams in the last 7 years (most recently #3 Syracuse in 2012), the matchup with #10 Kansas represented Temple’s last chance to turn the trick this season after earlier losses to Duke and Villanova. Not only can you now make that 6 times in the last 7 years, but the Owls put forth such a dominating effort in dispatching the Jayhawks, the tournament committee will be forced to take a long, hard long at them come March.

The Owls dominated play from start to finish, never trailing and beginning the game on a 12-2 run. All night long, Kansas was unable to work the ball inside to leading scorer Perry Ellis, who was held to just 5 points thanks in large part to the efforts of Temple big man Jaylen Bond. Coach Dunphy on the former transfer’s work defensively, “I thought Jaylen did a really good job, and we were going to try to help a little bit if they did go over top, but I thought Jaylen just battled…For the most part, Jaylen Bond was just a terrific defender tonight.” Bond finished with 8 points, 10 rebounds, and 3 steals, but it was his contribution to holding Kansas’ two starting forwards to 1-11 shooting that was most vital.

The Jayhawks also hurt themselves by turning the ball over, accruing 13 by halftime on their way to 17 total, an uncharacteristic total for a normally disciplined Bill Self team. Coach Self said after the game, “A lot of it was self-inflicted, but also, they played good defense…Give them credit, but we didn’t help ourselves much.” The Jayhawks were also done in by an off night from their pair of projected NBA lottery picks. Freshmen Kelly Oubre and Cliff Alexander each started in a game for the first time, but you might not have noticed them out there, as they combined for zero points at halftime, and finished with just a total of 11 points (much of that in garbage time).

Instead, the offensive show was put on by a pair of a trio of Owls. Will Cummings led Temple with 19 points, continually making the big outside shot or drive to the hoop whenever it looked like Kansas might creep back into the game. Quenton DeCosey only played 21 minutes, as Coach Dunphy sat him down a couple times due to careless turnovers (DeCosey had 4 total). When he was in the game and holding onto the basketball though, the junior was a scoring machine, recording 18 points on 7-9 shooting. Finally, transfer Jesse Morgan was once again impressive in his second game suited up in the cherry and white, dropping 17 points and hitting 3 of 8 threes.

With the mid-season additions of Morgan and fellow transfer Devin Coleman (who also made a few nice plays in this victory), Temple has a noticeably more well-rounded offensive attack and true depth up and down the roster. Commenting on the team coming together with the new additions, Coach Dunphy said, “Again, we’ve won both games, so it looks like we’re in sync, but we got a long way to go. We got to keep everyone on the same page…I think everybody has to know their role, and tonight was an example of everybody sacrificing.” Understandably, the coach has to keep expectations in check, and it has only been two games, but Temple looks like a different team than the one that took the floor last month.

When Morgan hit a corner three midway through the second half, to give the Owls their first 20-point lead, that’s when it really felt to everyone in the arena that this upset was going to happen. Two Temple possessions later, when Morgan completed a three-point play to extend the lead to 23, it was officially blood in the water time. The final few minutes were like a fever dream; everything went down for the Owls as the lead stretched as high as 30.  When it was all said and done, all that was left was for the students to rush the court like it was 2012.

Other Game Notes:

• My one question about Temple taking the subway down to the game: did everyone bring umbrellas? The AT&T station is still a bit of a walk from the Wells Fargo Center, and it was raining off and on throughout the night. I assume they had to walk back to the subway after the game too. I wonder about these things.
• Scouts from 13 NBA teams were in attendance, presumably watching the Kansas boys have one of their worst games of the season. Sixers GM Sam Hinkie was there, and treated like a rock star by the throngs of Philly faithful seated behind press row. No word yet on how many 2nd-round picks were nearly acquired while Hinkie was watching the game.
• One of my favorite parts of the game was in the second half when a Jayhawk fan was acting a fool and standing up doing some version of the Ray Lewis pregame dance. The entire Temple crowd began chanting a**hole, and when Will Cummings hit a floater, everyone stood around and pointed at him. I’m not just talking about the student section doing this, it was a good half of the arena. In related news, I love college basketball.