Ford, Tobiason Lead the Way in Big Win Over LaSalle

PHOTO BY LILLIAN PRIETO

Big win in the Big 5 classic opener for the Owls.

The Owls took care of business against LaSalle on Tuesday night, with guards Derrian Ford and Aiden Tobiason leading the charge in the 90-63 win.

Ford, the leading scorer for the Owls, found his groove later in the game with 17 of his 22 points coming in the second half. Ford shot a team high 66.7% from deep, and shot 8-14 overall on field goals, with four being from the three-point line.

Temple led confidently going into the half, and Ford’s outburst in the second half blew away any chance of the Explorer’s comeback.

The senior guard credited his second-half success to the mentality he learned from one of Coach Adam Fisher’s mentors, and legendary basketball coach Jim Larranaga.

“We had one of Coach Fisher’s mentors come in, and one thing that stood out to me, he just talked about playing the game, not the score, and so like, whatever happened just happened. So that has been my mentality ever since he told us that.”

Meanwhile, 12 of Tobiason’s 16 points come in the first half. The sophomore guard has continued to progress as a more complete player in his second year, looking a lot more comfortable on the court. After the game, he emphasized playing a more complete game.

“Last game, I had very little other stuff. So this game, I kind of emphasized, especially with the gameplay, getting more boards.”

The Owls took over the game quickly, only allowing LaSalle to hold a lead for less than two minutes, which came at the beginning of the game when the teams were trading buckets. After that, the Owls went on multiple scoring runs, including a 9-0 run.

The Owls’ lead came from playing aggressively, which was noticed by LaSalle head coach Darris Nichols, with Nichols saying, “I thought Temple came out and was more aggressive.”

Temple’s aggression worked as the Owls shot a 50% clip for both field goals and from the three-point line. Fisher talked about how they wanted to play faster this year and had to get better defensively to do so.

“We wanted to play faster this year. We have to do better defensively. How do you get better offensively? You get stops, you get rebounds, and we can get out and go.”

And the team has certainly done that in the young season so far, as, through a small sample size of two games, they are holding opponents to 64 PPG. Tuesday night was a good example of getting better defensively.

This was showcased by the Owls grabbing 28 defensive rebounds, stealing the ball six times, and blocking eight shots.

At half, Temple was up 42-29 and was just beginning to take over the game.

In the second half, the Owls outscored the Explorers 48-34, mostly in part to Ford catching fire in the second half.

But the game was more than just Ford and Tobiason, as they had two other guys put up double-digit points.

Senior guard Jordan Mason put up 14 points and hit on 71.4% of his shots.

Meanwhile, who seems to be becoming a fan favorite, junior guard Gavin “LeBron Frames” Griffths, put up his second straight game of 10+ points while shooting 40% from three and grabbing six rebounds.

With this team’s core being relatively new, with 11 of 15 rostered players being new to Philly, Coach Fisher made sure they knew how much the Big 5 Classic means to him and the school.

“These guys learned a lesson, too, on the Big 5. We have 11 new guys. We had a video, and we went through our history. So I think it was a great educational thing to learn about the Big 5 and the pride of this thing growing up in this area, which means a lot. This is something that I get really excited about.”

For Big 5 play, the Owls start off 1-0 in Pod two, and will be facing Villanova for game 2 of pod play on December 1st.

Overall, Temple starts 2-0 and has played very well on both sides of the ball, averaging 86.5 PPG on offense and allowing only 64 PPG on defense through two games.

The Owls get a quick three-day rest and are right back to work against Boston College at the Liacouras Center on Saturday at 2:00 p.m.