PHILADELPHIA, PA. 12/7/2019 – The Temple Owls suffered their second loss of the season to the Missouri Tigers 64 – 54 in a tough game at the Liacouras Center where there were 43 fouls called. The Owls fall to 6 – 2 while the Tigers broke a three-game losing streak.
“Execution is important if you have any thoughts of being a good team,” said Temple Coach Aaron McKie. “Offensive execution for us has to get better. I want to see us do that more consistently throughout the game.”
Turnovers hurt the Owls as they had 19 compared to 14 for Missou. Miscues cost the hosts chances at the basket as the visitors got 5 more shots from the floor. And turnovers at the end snowballed and cost the Owls a chance to get back into the game.
“We were just careless with the ball,” said Temple guard Quinton Rose.
“We moved too fast, got excited needed to take out time. That’s all correctable.”
McKie believes you beat yourself with turnovers. But Temple was also ineffective from the three-point line as they made only 2 of 21 from beyond the arc.
“How you create those three-point shots is getting penetration and collapsing the defense, and kicking it out,” McKie said. “I don’t think we did a consistent job of doing that. Our timing was off.”
Missouri led for most of the game and kept it until Monty Scott hit a jumper to put the Owls in front 40 – 39 with 13:42 to play. The Scott basket was part of an overall 12 – 0 run over 4:52 that gave the Cherry and White a 45 – 39 advantage. Javon Pickett broke the scoreless streak with back to back baskets cutting the gap to a single point.
Temple stayed in front until there was just over 4 minutes to play when Jeremiah Tilmon scored and started an 8 – 2 run capped by a layup by Xavier Pinson with a little more than 2 minutes left. The three-pointer by Mark Smith in that stretch seemed to give Missouri control of the game.
“At home you knew they were going to make a run at some point,” said Missouri Coach Cuonzo Martin. “For us, let’s get stops. I thought we were on our heels defensively. We had to set the tone to be aggressive and make them take shots over us. Once we settled in and got stops it changed the momentum for us.”
Temple scoring was more concentrated as six players who saw game action record points. Quinton Rose scored a team-high 16 points. Jake Forrester added 11. Nate Pierre-Louis scored 10 points and had 9 rebounds.
Missouri had all nine players who were in the game score, led by Javon Pickett with a team-high 16 points. Dru Smith added 12 points.
The Owls prepare for a Big Five game on Tuesday night when they host the Hawks of Saint Joseph’s, and look to get back on the winning track.
Written By: Glenn Papazian
Contact: Glenn@PhillyCollegeSports.com
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