Temple Looks To Bounce Back From Duke Loss
By Matt Leon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – After suffering their first loss of the season on Saturday against #2 Duke, the 6-1 Temple Owls will look to get back on track Wednesday as they host Towson at the Liacouras Center.
The Owls fell 90-67 to the Blue Devils on Saturday afternoon and head coach Fran Dunphy says they ran into a team on top of their game.
"They played very, very well," Dunphy tells KYW Newsradio about the Blue Devils. "I thought we needed to play great, and we didn't play very good, in order to win that game. Their offensive numbers in the second half were extraordinary."
LISTEN: Matt Leon interviews Fran Dunphy
One bright spot in defeat was the play of freshman guard Quenton DeCosey. He scored a career high 13 points in a career high 18 minutes off the bench against the Blue Devils, shooting 5 of 6 from the field (3 of 3 from three).
"He is progressing very well," Dunphy says. "I think it is always hard for a freshman to come in and really understand all of the things that go into playing college basketball. To include the schoolwork and the time management piece and all of those things. I think he's starting to really grasp all of that. And he can make shots, he can score the ball, there's no question about that. He's a really good rebounder, too. So I think his future is extremely bright."
DeCosey is averaging 4.6 points per game this season in seven games off the bench.
Towson is 4-5 and last time out on Saturday they gave #15 Georgetown all they could handle before falling 46-40 down in Washington D.C.
"They are very aggressive defensively," Dunphy says about Towson. "They have good defensive numbers. They are holding opponents well under 40% from the field, 31% from the three-point-shooting line and they are not allowing a whole lot of foul shots. So all of those numbers are really good. They're opponents are less assists than turnovers. They have done a really good job."
Towson is already light years ahead of last season when they finished a wretched 1-31.
Temple and Towson will tip-off at 7:00pm on Wednesday night.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
