<em>College Basketball:</em> Temple Owls Readying for Stretch Run
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Just two games left in the regular season for the Temple Owls. The first of them is Wednesday night on the road, against UMass.
Temple is 22-6 (12-2 in the Atlantic-10) after smothering George Washington on Saturday, 57-41.
Defense continues to set the tone for the Owls, according to head coach Fran Dunphy.
"Individually, (senior forward) Lavoy Allen is as good an individual defender as there is, but he's also a tremendous team defender," says Dunphy. "I don't know that the rest of us are great necessarily, individually, but I think we've bought into the team concept of how to play defense. So that's carried us."
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The Owls are allowing just 61 points per game this season, and opponents shoot just 40 percent from the field against Temple.
As far as Wednesday's game with UMass, the Minutemen are coming off a 21-point loss to La Salle on Sunday, but Dunphy says that performance had a lot more to do with the Explorers than anything else.
"La Salle played great the other day on Sunday, really had a great game against UMass. It was a terrific, terrific effort by La Salle. But previous to that, UMass had been playing terrific basketball. They are long, they are athletic, they are deep and they are talented," Dunphy says.
UMass is 15-12 (7-7 in the Atlantic 10) coming into Wednesday night.
Reported by Matt Leon, KYW Newsradio 1060.
