Tulane Waves Goodbye to Temple in the Third Quarter and Never Looks Back

Written By: Liam Andell

Photo Courtesy of: Temple Women’s Basketball Twitter

In the first game of a back-to-back, Temple could not keep up with the high power offense Tulane displayed and ultimately was defeated by a final score of 80-44.

Despite a back-and-forth first half, when the buzzer sounded for the beginning of the second half, it seemed like Tulane came out on the floor and Temple stayed back in the locker room.

Temple was out-scored 30-6 in the third quarter and 46-9 in the entire 2nd half.  This was arguably the worst half for Temple this season outside of their second-half performance against #5 South Carolina on Dec. 17 where they were outscored 59-16

How did the game get out of hand so quickly for Temple? A lot of this blowout leans on the defensive pressure that Tulane applied on Temple as they reached half court.  

The inability to make an easy pass lead to seven Temple turnovers and resulted in 14 points on the other end for Tulane in the third quarter.  When Temple had the opportunity to set up their offense, they were ice cold from the field shooting 2 of 12.

On the other end of the floor, Tulane’s entire offense was on fire.  Shooting 13 of 15 from the field, the Green Wave refused to let up and went on a 24-0 run. 

Tulane has three players inside the top ten for points per game in the AAC.  While Krystal Freeman and Arsula Clark both had solid performances today, it was the superstar freshman Jerkalia Jones that really showed out as she dropped 22 points on 10 of 14 shooting

Once the fourth quarter rolled around the twenty-three-point deficit was too much to makeup and Temple continued to struggle as they shot 0 of 11 from the field.

The shooting from the field was poor and so was their efficiency at the charity stripe.  Going 8 for 16 from the line is not ideal and they are leaving a ton of opportunities out on the floor.

Although the game was practically over in the 3rd quarter, the issues from the line have been consistent all season as they shoot 64.4% from the line which ranks #253 in the nation. 

While three Temple Owls found themselves in double figures for the game, the offense could not get into a rhythm in that second half.  

Freshman standout Jasha Clinton finally hit a bit of a wall today.  Entering today, Clinton was 10th in the AAC in points per game averaging 13 but was on an even hotter streak of late averaging 18.8 in her last four matchups.

Unfortunately for Clinton and the Owls, today was not her day.  Shooting 2-12 for only 5 points on the day, Clinton was actually scoreless in 3 quarters of today’s game.  

This loss against Tulane comes at an unfortunate time.  Temple had the opportunity to separate themselves in the AAC with teams like USF and UCF as the upper echelon of the conference.  

Instead, Temple sits at 3rd and drops to 5-3 in conference play with the chance to fall down to 5th in the conference if they fall to Tulane (5-4) on Jan. 31. 

Tip-off is scheduled for 12:00 PM and can be seen on ESPN+