Nobody looked more like the team they coached logo more than John Chaney looked like the Temple Owl.
Let’s get this season over with. It’s already turned upside down after the Owls had to pause activity for 14 days following COVID positives that cancelled three Big 5 games including Nova and St. Joes. Today is a real barn burner against a powerhouse NJIT team. The same program who went on a 51 game losing streak at one point. The Owls are -7.5 point favorites at the Liacouras Center and if you bet this game you’ve reached heights of degeneracy not seen since Worm in Rounders. You want to know what the outlook on this season is? There’s not a more perfect headline than this one from the Inquirer.
Four of the top five scorers transferred, graduated, or declared for the draft (LOL NPL), they’re picked to finish 10th in the AAC, and if you don’t have cable you probably won’t even know they played this season.
Imagine having to rely on J.P. Moorman, Dre Perry, and Jake Forrester leading an offensive surge after combining to average less than 20ppg last year. T for Transfer U though. The one bright spot should be Khalif Battle, a 6’5 guard, who transferred from Butler and was a top-100 recruit that averaged 23.7ppg his senior year at Trenton Catholic.
Tai Strickland another transfer from Wisconsin is recovering from shoulder surgery and is a game time decision today against NJIT will be the most electric PG since Will Cummings (Jesus that’s sad). If he can stay healthy, which he hasn’t been able to previously, he’s easily going to be the most exciting player to watch all season as he’s putting dudes on posters and dropping no look passes for Dre Perry to mishandle and kill momentum.
But we haven’t even touched on the secret weapon who has NBA lineage even more exciting than Tai Strickland’s. The Great White Hope! The greatest transfer since Jake O’Brien. Brendan Barry.
You like 3’s? Might I interest you in the greatest shooter in Ivy League history! You give Brendan Barry an inch and he’ll drop a bomb in your eye.
And…you can’t teach freaky genetics.
I almost talked myself into this season maybe being less of a dud or maybe they’ll surprise some people. Temple’s only had 4 losing seasons in the last 44 years. But…then they go and drop the least inspiring pre-season hype video of all time, which probably will define how the season ends up being remembered. Boring, forgetful, and J.P. Moorman’s fingerprints all over it.
What a cry for help. I don’t want to shit on the 20 year old kid who made this in his dorm amid a pandemic, but can we try something new one year? Shot of the city, add in the Bell Tower, something about Diamonds. Did we mention we play on Broad Street? A player yells into the camera, and of course an audio clip of Rocky dubbed over highlights. We’re a Nike school now, can we act like it?
Let’s get as much as we can out of this season as possible. Upset a couple teams, make it at least watchable against Nova, and give me an AAC tournament run where I can get my hopes up and I’ll be happy. This is Aaron McKie’s “guys” now, even though he had a hand in recruiting everyone previously as an assistant, we’ll get to see what we have in him. And can we maybe land one Philly recruit who grew up two blocks from campus?
Under 133 is tasty today.
P.S. There’s no spread for the Houston/Temple game on Tuesday, but whatever it is take Temple and the points. Temple’s good for one upset of a top-10 team every year. And if it doesn’t happen Tuesday you’ll make your money back when Houston comes to the Liacouras in February on a 9 game win streak.
