The Owls made 10 of their first 12 shots and led by as many as 12 with 13 minutes left in the game. But Buffalo, which was picked to finish last in its division in the Mid-American Conference, shot 62 percent in the second half and won, 83-73, Saturday night in western New York.

Temple (3-2) was without sophomore forward Lavoy Allen and was out-rebounded 33-24. Coach Fran Dunphy said this morning that Allen had broken his left thumb in the first half of the Nov. 21 win at Lafayette, but that he played the duration of the game. The pain, clearly, had set in later.

Dunphy said the crack was “not in the joint, so there was no pin needed” as part of Allen’s healing process.

“They’re going to re-X-ray it today, actually,” Dunphy said. “If there is some healing taking place there’s a chance that they could soft-cast it and he might be able to play on Wednesday. It’s probably more likely he would play Saturday than Wednesday.”

Dunphy said not having Allen was significant — particularly on the defensive end.

“He covers up for a lot of sins that people make defensively,” Dunphy said. “He just knows where to be; his basketball IQ is extremely high. So it’s as much that as anything else. Do we need him to score and rebound? Yeah, we do. But his presence defensively is really a very meaningful thing that he brings to the game.”

Sergio Olmos, who missed the start of the season with a sprained ankle, returned to action for the first time and scored 12 points and had two blocks.

“We spent most of the preseason working with two big guys, and then as soon as we start the season we don’t have Sergio, and then as soon as Sergio’s back we don’t have Lavoy,” Dunphy said. “Hopefully Micheal Eric (a 6-11 freshman) has had some valuable minutes and (is) working though some of the rust that is on him.”

The injuries forced Dunphy to play a four-guard lineup for stretches of Saturday’s game.

“It allows us — certainly on the defensive end — to switch a lot,” Dunphy said. “We have a lot of the same-sized guys making decisions defensively. On the offensive end, hopefully we’re a little bit better (with) ball-handling, but we still have turned it over a few too many times (16 against Buffalo), but some of that is just because we’re just trying to do things a little bit too quickly.”

The Owls open their home schedule Wednesday night against Miami (Ohio) at Liacouras. The Red Hawks were picked to finish first in their division in the MAC.

Photo credit: [Temple University]

Click here to return home

Comments Off