Temple Looks To Find The Offense Thursday Against Houston
By Matt Leon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Temple Owls will look to get back on the winning track on Thursday as they welcome Houston to the Liacouras Center in American Athletic Conference play.
The 19-9 Owls (10-5 in the AAC) dropped their last two games on the road. A 67-58 loss at SMU last Thursday was followed by a 55-39 loss at Tulsa on Sunday. In that loss to the Golden Hurricane, Temple shot just 25% from the field and they hit on just 1 of 14 three-point attempts.
Owls head coach Fran Dunphy says it was a combination of Tulsa locking them down and his team struggling to finish.
"I would never say that they didn't play great defense, they certainly did," Dunphy tells KYW Newsradio. "But we were at the rim a half a dozen times, we had another couple of opportunities, had open looks at threes. Just couldn't get it to go down. We also shot poorly at the foul line (10-24) and sometimes that can stem the tide a little bit. So we didn't get anything going on the offensive end for ourselves, but Tulsa's a very good basketball team as well, especially on the defensive end."
Listen to the entire interview with Temple's Fran Dunphy
Will Cummings led the Owls with 15 points against Tulsa, but he was held to just 23 minutes because of foul trouble.
"(His absence) did affect us, there's no question about that," Dunphy says.
Houston has struggled this season. The Cougars are 9-17 (1-13 in the American) and they bring a five-game losing streak into this one. They are led by junior Jherrod Stiggers who pours in 14.3 ppg.
"They've been banged up a little bit," Dunphy says. "But they are a talented group. I think Kelvin Sampson does a really nice job of coaching them."
Houston lost junior point guard L.J. Rose to a foot injury last game, a loss to Cincinnati. He will miss the rest of the season.
Temple lost to Houston last season, 89-79. That game was also played at the Liacouras Center.
Thursday night's game tips-off at 7:00 p.m.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
