The Owls Can’t Stop the Streaking Mustangs

Two streaking teams met on Thursday night as the SMU Mustangs came to the Liacouras center to visit the Temple Owls.

The SMU Mustangs [21-4, 11-1 AAC] emerged victoriously to run their winning streak to seven over the Temple Owls [13-12, 4-8 AAC] with a 66-50 win. Behind 30 points from Semi Ojeleye, the Mustangs proved to be too much for the Owls to handle. It was a chippy game throughout with 33 fouls being called both ways but the issue was that Temple committed 21 of those and was without key contributors when it mattered most.

The Temple Owls got off to a quick start in this one forcing SMU into a few quick shots thanks to good team defense. The issue is that thanks to bad shot selection, the Owls weren’t able to build an early cushion and the Mustangs quickly closed the gap. While the Owls were good to start this one on the defensive end, they also were fortunate that the Mustangs were off on the offensive end.

SMU has one of the most efficient offenses in the country but on some nights, the rim is a cruel mistress. The Temple Owls were able to keep it close early thanks to their defensive effort but the Mustangs consistently showed that they were ready to break out of their offensive slump. They were gifted that chance midway through the half as Mark Williams was called for a questionable flagrant foul that caused a four-point swing in favor of SMU.

“They had a good gameplan, thankfully we were turning them over because we would’ve had a real deficit if we hadn’t done that.” – SMU coach Tim Jankovich

The Owls could have been up more at that point but they weren’t able to handle the defensive press from the Mustangs, committing 11 turnovers in the first half (they average 11 per game for perspective). When asked about the turnovers, Shizz Alston said, “It’s  a long team so we had to throw over their length and we struggled with that a couple times.”

SMU especially went into lockdown mode closing out the first half as the Owls went over eight minutes without a field goal until Quinton Rose broke the drought with a score. Thanks to Semi Ojeleye, however, the Mustangs would end the half with a 28-18 lead over the Owls.

Having only scored 18 in the first half, the Temple Owls were going to need to pick up some slack heading into the second half if they wanted to keep their winning streak going. Coming out of the half, it was all SMU as they began to pad their lead. It looked like they would put an early end to this one but the Quinton Rose show was just beginning.

SMU head coach Tim Jankovich had praise for Rose in his post game presser saying,

"“The problem was that I was impressed with him the last time we played. I think he set an arena record for steals in the amount of minutes that he played, for gosh sakes. He turned them all into points I think and he’s a tremendousathletee, great first step. He’s a tremendous talent and I was impressed with him a long time ago.”"

He ignited the crowd with a transition alley-oop then followed it up with a steal and transition score for the Owls. it didn’t seem like much at the time but Alston and Rose were able to get on a roll to pull the Owls back into this game. They were able to get within six points but SMU were able to roll with the punches. Most of this was due to their domination of the offensive glass where they had a 15-7 advantage on the Owls.

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The tide shifted back into SMU’s favor when Sterling Brown baited Rose into a technical foul which was his fourth of the game. At the time Alani Moore returned to take Rose’s place but he wasn’t able to provide the same threat to the Mustang’s defense allowing them to neutralize Temple’s attack. When things got tough the Temple Owls turned to a “chuck it and go” offense and that isn’t going to be able to beat top teams.

SMU was able to prey on the desperate play of the Owls in order to run their lead up to the final 16-point advantage. 16 turnovers will allow a team to do that but the Temple Owls weren’t able to capitalize on 16 turnovers from the Mustangs. It’s a game that the Owls could have won and that’s what makes this loss sting a little more than some of the others.

The decision to leave Moore out of the game near the end of the game in favor of Mike Robbins who has played sporadically this season will be questioned. When asked after the game why Moore sat Dunphy said, “The other guys were playing better, [Mike] Robbins gave us quality minutes tonight”

Next: The Owls Ride Daniel Dingle to Victory over USF

Next up for the Owls is a trip to Memphis for a rematch with the Tigers on Sunday. Memphis will be looking to avenge their loss when they came to visit Temple so the Owls will have to be on top of their game if they’d like to leave with a victory.