Owls drop third straight in loss to ECU

ARTICLE BY MATEO VERDEN

PHOTO: COURTESY

Temple Women’s Basketball needed a win in a big way heading into the Liacouras Center Saturday afternoon. The visiting ECU Pirates had no intention of making it easy for the Owls. 

Both teams battled throughout the game, but the difference maker ended up being the turnovers. The Owls turned over the ball 24 times, including a couple of crucial times in the fourth quarter. 

Despite this, Temple actually outscored the Pirates, but it was too little too late as the Owls fell to a final score of 79-73 against East Carolina. Following the loss, Temple dropped to 10-14 on the season and 4-8 in the American. 

After the game, Head Coach Diane Richardson said, “ Well, first I want to say ECU does have a tough defense, but I think our turnovers today were self-imposed, just not making crisp passes, and we got to be better at that as well.” 

As previously mentioned, the game started out fast and furious; there was a lot of high-paced basketball with both teams shooting better than 50% in that first quarter. There were also a lot of turnovers, with the Owls committing seven turnovers and the Pirates committing two of their own. Surprisingly enough, ECU only came out of the quarter with four fast break points. The Pirates finished the quarter with a three-point lead, thanks to a six-point run near the end of the quarter, thanks to two steals, and good rebounding.   

Going into the second, the Owls really needed to clean up their turnovers and just play better defense. Unfortunately, Temple turned the ball over on the opening inbounds pass. Which would come to be a precursor for the rest of the quarter, where the Owls committed 10 more turnovers. However, the Owls would outscore the Pirates in the second quarter by three points, so going into halftime, the game was all tied up.  

Looking at some first-half stats, some important notes were that Temple had 17 turnovers in one half, which is more than double what they had in their last game against UTSA. The Owls were winning the rebound battle by 10, which is why the game was still so close even with all of those turnovers. The Owls were also shooting 50% from the field, and in most important categories, the Owls had the advantage, other than arguably the most important category, that being turnovers.  

At the half, some key players for both sides were Temple’s Saniyah Craig, with 12 points and four rebounds, and East Carolina’s Kennedy Fauntleroy with nine points and two rebounds. If the Owls could clean up the turnovers and maybe have another top scorer alongside Craig, it looked like they could pull this game out.   

In the third quarter, the Owls’ shooting percentage dropped to 37%, and they got out-rebounded, leading to eight second-chance points for the Pirates. Once again, the Pirates went on another six-point run near the end of the quarter thanks to some good defense and a three-pointer from guard Taylor Barner.  

Going into the fourth, the score was 57-48 in favor of the Pirates. The Owls were able to force seven turnovers, but struggled shooting, going 8-21 from the field. They did outscore the Pirates this quarter by three points, but it wasn’t enough to get the job done as the well ran dry for the Owls.  

Some important takeaways are that Saniyah Craig had her highest scoring game of the year tonight and has been pretty hot lately when the team has really needed her. Craig finished with 20 points and six rebounds. 

When asked about what was working for her today Craig said, “Really just playing my game and playing slower, because usually when I speed up, that doesn’t really work, so just playing slower and just playing my game.”  

Another key takeaway, as if it isn’t obvious already, is the number of turnovers committed. There was a total of 44 turnovers from both teams, a lot of sloppy passes, and at times some good defense as well.  

Temple forward Savannah Curry also shone with 18 points, eight rebounds, four assist and five steals. For the Pirates, Anzhane’ Hutton totaled 19 points, five rebounds, two assists, and two steals, while Kennedy Fauntleroy had 19 points, two rebounds, three assists, and two steals.  

The Owls will now travel to Charlotte to play the 49ers at Halton Arena at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 17th.