Temple University Athletics
OWLS FALL TO MARYLAND, 80-69, IN NON-CONFERENCE FINALE
1.15.05 | Men's Basketball
COLLEGE PARK, MD - Maryland's Nik Caner-Medley scored a career-high 35 points and Temple saw its highly competitive non-conference schedule come to a close with a 80-69 loss to the Terps at the Comcast Center on Saturday. Sophomore Dustin Salisbery scored 16 points to lead TU, which placed all five starters in double-figures.
"What I look for when I play teams outside of our conference -- tough teams, top 20 teams -- is to just find guys that keep hanging in there," said Temple coach John Chaney on his schedule. "It's a challenge to me, it's a challenge to them, and they should feel pretty good about themselves regardless of what the score is. As long as I'm at Temple I'll always schedule tough teams. I wouldn't have it any other way."
The Owls (6-7), jumped out to a quick 17-8 lead to start the contest, courtesy of red-hot shooting. Temple made seven of its first eight shots with freshman Mark Tyndale, who has struggled mightily with his shot of late, connecting on both of his attempts in the run.
Maryland (10-4), which is now 109-2 against non-conference opponents at home under head coach Gary Williams, took its first lead of the contest at the 9:34 mark of the first half, when Mike Jones (21 points) scored six straight points in an 8-0 Terp run.
Tyndale, who scored 10 of his 15 points in the first half, hit two free throws to put Temple back ahead. The Owls, despite Wayne Marshall and Keith Butler sitting on the bench the final 12 minutes with two fouls and Mardy Collins connecting on his first field goal with 4:52 to play in the half, were able to hold onto the lead at intermission, 36-34.
It would be too much of Caner-Medley in the second half for the Owls, however.
The 6-8 junior, who tallied the most points in over a decade by a Terp, scored Maryland's first 12 points to start the second half. He had a team-high nine rebounds, including six offensive boards -- two finished with monster slam dunks.
"He hurt us a lot," said Chaney. "Most of the time he had wedged himself and had Antywane (Robinson) underneath the basket. When they got it in the back (of the zone) and our guys found themselves standing behind him, he'd just whirl right underneath and got shot after shot."
On the other hand, the Owls held Maryland All-America candidate John Gilchrist to four points, well below his team-leading 15.4 average.
Despite Caner-Medley's offensive explosion, Temple owned a six-point lead, 50-44, with 12:37 remaining following a Salisbery three-pointer. Marshall (10 points), who topped double figures for the second straight game and fifth time on the season, scored six straight Temple points just prior to Salisbery's trey, four coming off his standard short baseline jumper.
Marshall would however leave the contest following an elbow to the left eye by Will Bowers that required four stitches. That happened at the 8:01 mark and came in the midst of a seven-point Maryland run that gave the Terps a 59-54 lead.
Temple would tie the game two minutes later at 62 on a Robinson (11 points) three-pointer, but a dunk by Bowers and free throws by Jones and Gilchrist would provide the home team with their largest lead of the contest, 68-62, with 4:22 to play.
Jumpers by Collins and Salisbery would cut it to two points at the 3:35 mark, but that would be as close as the Owls would come as Maryland would hit six of eight free throws over the final minute and a breakaway slam by Caner-Medley made the final score not indicative of the way the game was contested.
Collins, the Owls' leader, had a frustrating game. The 6-6 point guard scored 12 points and dished a career-high 11 assists in recording his second career double-double. However, being guarded by arguably the toughest defender in the ACC, D.J. Strawberry, he turned the ball over eight times.
As a team, Temple coughed the ball up 15 times, due largely to full-court pressure defense employed throughout the contest by the Terps. It also was the first time all season that the Owls turned the ball over more than their opponent (14 for UM).
"We missed a couple of shots, and they came up big with some stops at the end," said Collins. "If you can't get the stops at the end, that's the end of the game."
Now Temple will see how this non-conference schedule has prepared it for the Atlantic 10 Conference as the remainder of the Owls' schedule is against A-10 foes.
"Playing those teams just prepares us for our schedule in the A-10," says Salisbery. "But we are going to come out and play our conference schedule just like we play the ACC teams, with good defense and being aggressive."
Chaney plans to go back to his big lineup starting with the team's next game against St. Bonaventure on Wednesday at the Liacouras Center (7:00 p.m.). His plan is to insert Butler into the starting five for Robinson, who despite a career-high four blocked shots, continued to struggle on the defensive end.
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