Thread: Temple Part II
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Old 02-22-2023, 12:47 PM   #2
sedziobs
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We are 0-3 against Temple under Wes Miller, despite them being outside the Torvik top 100 each time. They have sought to exploit DDJ on defense in each matchup. Against us, Temple often operates through one of their many bigger wings (Battle, Dunn, White, or Hicks) posting up DDJ near the elbow. They have also dominated us on the glass in each matchup. In the first game this season, Temple went on a 15-0 run in the first half that we never recovered from. They beat us 46-28 on the boards, with Jahlil White alone pulling down 16 rebounds.

One way to counter Temple's strategy is to play zone. On the season, Temple isn't a great three point shooting team at 33%. But they've been hot from beyond the arc recently, making 10 in each of their last three games at 44%. So going zone could backfire. Another option is to not switch any screens with DDJ and keep him on 6'-1" Hysier Miller all game. Miller leads the team at 31.5 minutes per game. We can match that with DDJ.

We also need to focus on rebounding. Temple isn't even a good rebounding team. They're #186 in offensive rebounding and #235 in defensive rebounding. There's no reason we should be losing by 18 on the glass to them. We can also try to exploit their biggest weakness, which is turnovers. We did force 15 turnovers in the first game, but Temple is #300 in taking care of the ball so we should pressure them more and not let them get comfortable setting up how they want.

On offense, we can't settle for so many midrange jumpers. We took 29 of them in the first game, compared to just 13 rim looks and 18 threes. That's a terrible offensive gameplan. Hopefully we've made some adjustments.
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