Richmond bounced back from a tough semi final loss by defeating Temple 61-49 on Tuesday. The consolation game of the Empire Classic at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center saw Richmond improve to 3-3 while Temple fell to 2-4. The numbers…
Possessions: 60- Just what Chris Mooney ordered as the Spiders play, to date, at a 65 possession tempo.
Offensive efficiency: Richmond 102, Temple 82
Good offense, even better defense for the Spiders.
Four Factors:
eFG pct: Richmond 50, Temple 47
FT Rate: Richmond 23, Temple 14
OREB Pct: Temple 28, Richmond 27
TO Rate: Richmond 17, Temple 27
What Richmond did well. Defend (see offensive efficiency) and keep the Owls off the foul line, which correlates to good defense. Spiders also did a nice job forcing Temple into 16 turnovers. Spiders showed a lot of full court defense that kept Temple out of an offensive rhythm. Overall, it was a defensive performance you would love to bottle.
What Temple did well. Shoot the three. Aaron McKie’s Owls went 10 of 27 (37%) from deep. Part of shooting the three was due to Richmond’s clogging the lane on defense. Temple opted to go from deep and connected. Ultimately not enough.
This was the first meeting of the two schools since Temple played in the A10 back in 2013. Temple and Richmond met in the A10 championship, won by the Owls, in 2010 back in Atlantic City.
Kenpom.com MVP: Tyler Burton. The Richmond senior scored a team high 18 points while grabbing seven rebounds.
Temple was paced by Khalif Battle with a game high 26 points. Battle shot 6 of 11 from three but on the flip side committed a game high 6 turnovers.
St. John’s captured the title by defeating Syracuse 76-69 in overtime. Syracuse had eliminated Richmond, also in OT, in the semis the previous night.
Richmond is off until November 30th when they resume with a game at Toledo.
“Our defense was exceptional. That’s a really talented team. They can score…There were no possessions where there wasn’t a crowd around the driver, a crowd going for the rebound.” – Richmond coach Chris Mooney
