Temple Owls still searching for their identity

Thursday’s announcement that Temple big man Jamille Reynolds — the most productive inside presence the Owls have had in quite some time — is out probably six to eight weeks after thumb surgery … brutal news on North Broad Street.

According to a Temple source, Reynolds had been playing injured, which both speaks highly of his 13 points and 9 rebounds in 25 minutes against Penn, and how hard it will be to replace him.

That news is cut-and-dried — this hurts Temple. Little else about this season has been easy to explain. Did you have the Owls for a win over Villanova sandwiched between overtime home losses to Wagner and Vanderbilt, followed by a win over Rutgers? (I’d have gone WLWL, not LWLW.)

How about a four-game winning streak anchored by a win over VCU, followed by the loss to Penn? Four straight City 6 wins, then a loss to a team that hadn’t won a Big 5 game?

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Let’s simplify this. The 2022-23 Owls have not yet established an identity. They’ve had strong performances, individual and team. But what exactly do they hang their hat on?

It’s hard to find any meaningful statistic in which Temple is in the top 80 nationally. Offensive efficiency — 97th. Defensive efficiency — 145th. The Owls commit more turnovers than they force from opponents. They don’t get offensive rebounds particularly well (201st nationally). They shoot threes slightly better than they defend them, but not enough to call either area a strength.

It all adds up to 6-5, where Temple stands going into Saturday’s game at Mississippi.

Khalif Battle has mostly been a consistent scorer, but he has had to be. He has averaged 23.2 points during the six wins, 15 points over the five losses.

The hope that Battle and fellow guard/scorer Damian Dunn could be a full-time dynamic duo hasn’t yet panned out. Dunn’s season adds to the mystery. He came flying out of the gate, averaging 29.7 points over the first three games, getting the game-winning free throws against ‘Nova after he forced a foul. Since then, Dunn has hit double figures only three times.

Reynolds, the transfer from Central Florida, had been efficient inside, where he’s a force, but he’d been taking fewer shots lately. The injury obviously may explain that.

Maybe all this can be better explained by the note next to each starter’s name.

Sophomore.

Temple’s top seven players are sophomores. All talented, in different ways. All hungry. All hitting their college primes. Many of them are a bit older because they transferred in. But they’re not quite meshing together all the time, not enough to establish an identity.

What Temple fans presumably hoped would be their identity was what they showed against Villanova. More steals than turnovers. Dunn and Battle scored 22 and 21, respectively, adding up to a potent double backcourt scoring weapon. Temple didn’t make a ton of threes that night at the Liacouras Center — shooting just 5 of 23 from long range — but the Owls got things done by getting to the foul line and converting 17 of 21 shots. They also defended the three-point line, where ‘Nova made just 2 of 7. (Reynolds also was a huge force that night, making 7 of 12 shots, grabbing 12 rebounds in 23 minutes.)

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Big picture, what’s the overall look you’d hope for? Maybe what their coach, Aaron McKie, always provided as a player, not just when he was a star at Temple, but as a high-end role player in the NBA, including when McKie won NBA sixth man of the year in 2001.

It’s important to not use the Penn game as an example of what has gone on all season, because the Owls have shown plenty of fight in plenty of games, even ones they lost. But Temple seemed to just evaporate on the court in the final minutes at the Palestra. Eight minutes left, game tied … they lost by 20.

There were multiple turnovers and shots blocked. Worse than that, Penn got six offensive rebounds, most of them by Quakers reserve Andrew Laczkowski, who has been used so sparingly he couldn’t have even been on Temple’s scouting report, yet he took over the final minutes, finishing with seven points and nine rebounds in 14 minutes.

“I so desperately wanted to outright win it — because it makes a statement,” McKie said of the opportunity missed to sweep the City Series games. “But it didn’t happen. Nothing worked. I get in front of you guys [in the media] and I talk about the defense and how I want it to get better. It didn’t happen today. We talk about playing unselfish as an offensive unit — didn’t happen.”

You could point to specific plays, McKie said at the Palestra … “We went over at great length how these guys play offensively and what they’re going to do — constant movement on the weak side … they want to shoot threes, get to the basket. We stopped none of it.”

Battle then said, “I know you might point fingers at our coaching staff. It’s not their fault. It’s our fault. As players, we’ve got to come out ready to play. They do a great job of preparing us. It’s on us. We came out, it seemed like, we didn’t have enough fight. They came out, punched first, we didn’t punch back. They won the game because of that.”

Maybe, but Temple was ahead by two points at halftime, still tied near the end. After the end of the game got ugly, it wasn’t just on the court. Walking off, McKie stayed stone-faced as a young guy in a Temple shirt harangued him from the stands.

Maybe it was those words that made Battle say what he said. Or maybe he didn’t hear them. It’s hard to come up with easy answers about this year’s Temple squad. Which means the Owls probably win Saturday at Ole Miss. It’s been that kind of season already.