After a 9 day lay off the Cardinals take to the court for a showdown with Temple on Friday at 6pm on ESPN2. The game was postponed due to the winter storm in the Northeast. These teams don’t really have a long history and have only met five times overall. Which makes it seem very odd that this game is featured on ESPN’s rivalry week. Temple leads the all-time series 4-1 and has won the last four meetings. The most recent matchup came on March 19, 2002, as the Owls prevailed 65-62 over the Cardinals in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament in Freedom Hall. The last time Temple and Louisville met in Philadelphia was on Feb. 2, 1997 at the Spectrum, when the unranked Owls upset the 14th-ranked Cardinals, 67-44.

Temple has a history of being a good program and their fans are used to 20+ win seasons and good basketball. Those days seem like a like a long time ago and a team that was once thought to contend for the AAC title is struggling to get wins against anybody in the conference. Things have gone south fast in Philly and that doesn’t look likely to change in the near future. Despite being the only school in Division I to have four players averaging 14 or more points per game, ranking eighth in the country in fewest turnovers and 13th in turnovers per game Temple has dropped its last three contests. They are 6-16 overall, including 1-9 in conference play. This is a team struggling to score points and struggling to find the consistency they once had with their feard match-up zone defense.

The Owls are lead by Dalton Pepper (17.5ppg, 5.2rpg, 2.4apg), Will Cummings (16.4ppg, 3.2rpg, 4.4apg), Quenton DeCosey (15.2ppg, 3.5rpg, 2.2apg), and Anthony Lee (14ppg, 9.2rpg, 0.7apg).
Pepper is 4th in the AAC in scoring, 1st in the AAC in three pointers made and 10th in the AAC in three point percentage. Cummins is 5th in the league in scoring. DeCosey is 9th in the AAC in scoring and has had double figure scoring in 20 of 22 games. Lee leads the conference in rebounding, and has 10 double-doubles on the season. These guys are getting it done but not getting much help from the rest of the team.

Temple comes into Thursdays game averaging 74.6 points-per-game, while shooting 43.4% from the floor and 35% from 3-point range. The Owls are converting 69.1% of their attempts from the free-throw line. Defensively, Houston is allowing 77.8 points-per-game as the opposition is shooting 46.4% from the floor. The Owls are getting out-rebounding by their opponents 787-851 with a rebounding margin of -2.9 averaging 35.8 boards-per-contest.

Temple
2013-14 OVERALL RANKINGS
-POINTS PER GAME
74.6
94th
OVERALL
-REBOUNDS PER GAME
35.8
144th
OVERALL
-ASSISTS PER GAME
13.5
125th
OVERALL
-FIELD GOAL PCT
.434
236th
OVERALL

Kenpom Ranks
Overall – #173
Defense Adjustment Efficiency
– 111.3 ranks 295th
Offensive Adjustment Efficiency
– 110.8 ranks 58th

This is the type of team that our Cards have matched up well against this season. They aren’t a big, tall and athletic team but do have some solid players. Coach Pitino has had eight days to prepare for this game but in the AAC this year teams remain winless after a six or more game lay-off. The break did give our guys a chance to work on the defense and give them a chance to get healthy. Wayne Blackshear is back to 100% and will play Thursday night. I can see this being a big game for him. We really have the edge at every position on the court, but the real advantage comes with our bench play.
Temple is pulling out all the tricks for this one including making it their annual white-out game, but unless they’ve developed two or three more scorers over this past week this one isn’t going to be close. Our Cards should have a big night and it will be great to finally be watching them play again. Our wait is almost over Cardinal fans. Go Cards!