WHY TEMPLE WILL COVER:
Rice has had a pretty good start to their season thus far; they’ve gone through their first ten going 7-3, with respectable losses to #81 Iowa State, #38 Northern Iowa, and #121 Lamar. (Northern Iowa and Lamar were close; Iowa State was a slaughter.) Ben Braun, the team’s head coach, looks like he might lead his team to their first winning season since his arrival. Additionally, they’ve played well at home, sporting a 6-1 record. They have an impressive 79.1 ppg, get 42 boards pg, and shoot .474 from the floor.
That’s pretty much where I draw the line at complimenting Rice. We’re talking about a team who’s played the #341 strength of schedule out of a possible 345 teams going up against Temple. All those stats are so overly inflated by that fact and it will be exposed tonight. (Actually, they might truly be good at rebounding…finished 15th on offensive rebounds last year.) According to Kenpom and CYB, Temple was projected to finish #13 overall NCAA and projected to WIN the A-10. CYB said the following about Temple:
“As far as teams that the public might be too pessimistic about, this set of rankings would indicate Temple deserves more scrutiny. Sure, they’ll get some top 25 votes, but I’m not sure any AP voter will have them as high as the No. 13 you see here. They lost Lavoy Allen, but they only lost Lavoy Allen. The Uncle wants you to know that he thinks Allen will be missed, but that returning wing Ramone Moore was just as important to Temple’s success last season despite getting significantly less attention.
Let me just say Temple’s going to be really, really good this season…. it’s entirely possible that they march undefeated into their January 4 meeting with Duke at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia….Temple was a No. 7 seed in the 2011 NCAA tournament. Coach Fran Dunphy should be disappointed if that’s all they end up with in 2012.
Lavoy Allen was great. I really loved watching him play. But Temple is doing fine without him as Eric and Wyatt are stepping up, and especially, Senior Ramone Moore has stepped up (17.8 ppg, 4 rebounds pg, .405 from beyond the arc). Temple shoots .463 on FG this year, just slightly below Rice….but they have the #27 overall NCAA strength of schedule. That’s over 300 spots. Their adjusted efficiency ranks #31 offensively and #63 defensively; Rice ranks 132 and 212. Temple is just so, so explosive offensively. All of the numbers indicate that they should feast on Rice tonight (wow, no pun intended there lol).
Rice only won 2 games last year against Kenpom top 150 teams. Neither of these teams were even in the top 100. (Reminder, Temple is #39 currently, and Kenpom and I would both argue they are underachieving this season.) Rice was projected to finish 8th in C-USA this season and 146 in all NCAA. I have no reason to believe anything different will happen this year, or that they will keep it close tonight. I don’t see any individual mismatches in this game, but just think the Temple offense will get rolling and never look back. Rice is in for a rude awakening. Two of their last four games have been against unranked opponents (another reason their home record is inflated). The other two were Lamar and Houston Baptist. Lamar is decent at best (and they still lost by 6). Houston Baptist is absolutely effing terrible. They’re #329 overall according to Kenpom.
Temple rolls tonight. *TEMPLE -6*
WHY TEMPLE WILL COVER:
Rice has had a pretty good start to their season thus far; they’ve gone through their first ten going 7-3, with respectable losses to #81 Iowa State, #38 Northern Iowa, and #121 Lamar. (Northern Iowa and Lamar were close; Iowa State was a slaughter.) Ben Braun, the team’s head coach, looks like he might lead his team to their first winning season since his arrival. Additionally, they’ve played well at home, sporting a 6-1 record. They have an impressive 79.1 ppg, get 42 boards pg, and shoot .474 from the floor.
That’s pretty much where I draw the line at complimenting Rice. We’re talking about a team who’s played the #341 strength of schedule out of a possible 345 teams going up against Temple. All those stats are so overly inflated by that fact and it will be exposed tonight. (Actually, they might truly be good at rebounding…finished 15th on offensive rebounds last year.) According to Kenpom and CYB, Temple was projected to finish #13 overall NCAA and projected to WIN the A-10. CYB said the following about Temple:
“As far as teams that the public might be too pessimistic about, this set of rankings would indicate Temple deserves more scrutiny. Sure, they’ll get some top 25 votes, but I’m not sure any AP voter will have them as high as the No. 13 you see here. They lost Lavoy Allen, but they only lost Lavoy Allen. The Uncle wants you to know that he thinks Allen will be missed, but that returning wing Ramone Moore was just as important to Temple’s success last season despite getting significantly less attention.
Let me just say Temple’s going to be really, really good this season…. it’s entirely possible that they march undefeated into their January 4 meeting with Duke at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia….Temple was a No. 7 seed in the 2011 NCAA tournament. Coach Fran Dunphy should be disappointed if that’s all they end up with in 2012.
Lavoy Allen was great. I really loved watching him play. But Temple is doing fine without him as Eric and Wyatt are stepping up, and especially, Senior Ramone Moore has stepped up (17.8 ppg, 4 rebounds pg, .405 from beyond the arc). Temple shoots .463 on FG this year, just slightly below Rice….but they have the #27 overall NCAA strength of schedule. That’s over 300 spots. Their adjusted efficiency ranks #31 offensively and #63 defensively; Rice ranks 132 and 212. Temple is just so, so explosive offensively. All of the numbers indicate that they should feast on Rice tonight (wow, no pun intended there lol).
Rice only won 2 games last year against Kenpom top 150 teams. Neither of these teams were even in the top 100. (Reminder, Temple is #39 currently, and Kenpom and I would both argue they are underachieving this season.) Rice was projected to finish 8th in C-USA this season and 146 in all NCAA. I have no reason to believe anything different will happen this year, or that they will keep it close tonight. I don’t see any individual mismatches in this game, but just think the Temple offense will get rolling and never look back. Rice is in for a rude awakening. Two of their last four games have been against unranked opponents (another reason their home record is inflated). The other two were Lamar and Houston Baptist. Lamar is decent at best (and they still lost by 6). Houston Baptist is absolutely effing terrible. They’re #329 overall according to Kenpom.
Temple rolls tonight. *TEMPLE -6*
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