Tag Archives: Devontae Watson

Men’s basketball to face Southern Methodist in conference semis

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HARTFORD, Conn. – With an 80-75 defeat of Memphis in the quarterfinal round of the American Athletic Conference tournament, the Owls won the right to face the team that beat them twice in the regular season.

Temple, the fourth seed in the tournament, will face Southern Methodist, led by hall-of-fame coach Larry Brown, in a conference semifinal matchup Saturday at the XL Center.

The Mustangs highlighted a regular season in which they finished 25-6 with a 15-3 conference record, which topped The American standings. SMU also finished the season with a spot in the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the second consecutive year, holding the No. 20 ranking.

With Nic Moore leading the way for the Mustangs, they’ll be tough to contain on the offensive end. Moore, a redshirt-junior guard, won the conference’s player-of-the-year award and is averaging 14.5 points per game and 5.2 assists per game in 31 games, including SMU’s 74-68 win against eighth-seeded East Carolina on Friday.

The Owls will counter with senior guard Will Cummings, who drew consideration for player of the year in his own right, as enters Saturday’s contest with averages of 14.4  ppg and 4.3 apg, along with 2 steals per game.

A Temple spokesman said Saturday morning that junior forward Jaylen Bond is questionable for the game after Bond sprained his right ankle toward the end of the first half against Memphis. He did not return for the rest of the game.

If Bond remains absent for Saturday’s contest, that could give an edge to a Mustangs frontcourt consisting of sixth-man-of-the-year honoree Markus Kennedy, along with the likes of sophomore Ben Moore and senior Yanick Moreira.

ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi had Temple out of his list of teams that he predicts will be the last four teams to make the tournament, and among those that will secure an automatic spot in the second round.

While Friday’s defeat of Memphis may help the Owls’ tournament resume come Sunday night, junior center Devontae Watson, who posted eight points and four rebounds in the second half of Friday’s game in light of Bond’s absence, said his team needs to keep winning if it wants to play in the field of 68.

“With all the talk that’s going on, it’s definitely important that we [beat Memphis],” Watson said after Friday’s game. “The only sure way you get into the NCAA tournament is that you win this tournament. That’s the only sure way you’re getting a bid, and you have to try to strive for that. You’re not guaranteed unless you get that bid.”

Men’s basketball to contest conference quarterfinal with Memphis

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HARTFORD, Conn. – When Memphis faces the Owls Friday in a quarterfinal matchup in the American Athletic Conference Tournament, it’ll likely do so without its top scorer.

Sophomore forward Austin Nichols re-injured his ankle in the Tigers’ 74-72 overtime loss to Tulsa on Feb. 28, and hasn’t played since. Reports last week said Nichols, who averages 13.3 points per game, will likely sit out for the duration of the Connecticut-hosted tournament, which will take place in downtown Hartford at the XL Center.

Nichols initially injured the ankle in Memphis’ 61-60 home defeat to the Owls (22-9, 13-5 The American), in which junior guard Josh Brown hit a game-winning jump shot with 2.4 seconds left to play.

Senior forward Calvin Godfrey has averaged 11 points in his last two games starting in Nichols’ spot on the frontcourt alongside junior Shaq Goodwin. Without Nichols, Goodwin will enter Friday’s contest as the leading scorer for the Tigers (18-13, 10-8 The American) with his 9.5 ppg.

Senior guards Will Cummings and Jesse Morgan are coming off games in which they netted point totals of 23 and 17, respectively, in the Owls’ 75-63 defeat of Connecticut in their regular-season finale March 7 at the Liacouras Center. Cummings, who earned first-team all-conference honors for his regular-season efforts, paces Temple with 14.1 ppg, along with 4.3 assists per game and 2.1 steals per game. After re-joining the starting lineup Jan. 22 against South Florida after suffering a muscle strain in his lower left leg earlier in the month, Cummings hasn’t scored less than 12 points in any of Temple’s contests since.

Morgan, meanwhile, enjoyed his highest point total in a game Saturday since he netted 19 points in the Owls’ defeat of USF on Jan. 22. He sank 5 of 7 3-pointers in the victory, including two in the game’s final eight minutes.

With the absence of Nichols, junior Jaylen Bond, the conference’s leading rebounder with 8.3 boards per game, could benefit from a favorable matchup Friday alongside a combination of Temple forwards Devontae Watson and Obi Enechionyia.

Temple last won a conference tournament in the 2010-11 season as a member of the Atlantic 10. In The American’s inaugural tournament at Memphis last year, the Owls dropped a 94-90 contest to South Florida in double overtime.

The Tigers entered a conference quarterfinal matchup against Connecticut last season as the favorites and the No. 19-ranked team in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, but were topped, 72-53, by the Huskies en route to UConn’s national-title-winning run.

The two teams will tip off at 2 p.m., and will be shown on ESPN2. The winner will play Saturday at 3 p.m. against the victor of a quarterfinal between East Carolina and Southern Methodist, which will take place Friday at noon.