Tulane Men Use Solid Defense, 2nd Half Explosion to Knock off Temple, 77-66
In this story:
Dressed in their Mardi Gras finest, the Tulane men put on a defensive show Wednesday night against one of the top teams in the American Conference, Temple. Breaking a year-long trend offensively, the Green Wave lit up the scoreboard in the second half of their 77-66 victory over the Owls, shooting 68% from the field. However, the TU defense was the real story of this one.
Temple seemed to have trouble figuring out the Tulane matchup defense, which was working almost flawlessly, as the Owls could only manage 33% from the field for the game.
"We played a team that's one of the hottest teams in our league," coach Ron Hunter told the media after the game. "Like I told the guys after the game, one of the standards for us has been our defense. The difference is we made shots (tonight) and our defense played the same way (as usual)."
First Half: Tulane 30 - Temple 30
By checking the halftime score, it may be an understatement to say neither team shot well in the first 20-minutes of play. At the first media timeout with just over 15-minutes to play in segment one, Tulane was shooting 17%, while Temple was at 11%. By the 7:20 media timeout, both teams had improved, but not by much: Green Wave at 33% and the Owls at 23%. By the end of the first half, Tulane had shot nine less times than Temple, but was hitting at a 38% clip, though only 3-of-12 from the 3-point line. The Owls hit 30% of their 33 shots from the field.
It was back-and-forth for the entire first period. There were nine lead changes, and for almost half of that first half, the score was tied between the two.
The Owls had a slight advantage rebounding, getting 23-boards in comparison to Tulane’s 19.
Forward Tyler Ringgold led the Wave in scoring at the half with a dozen. Curtis Williams Jr. had seven, Asher Woods chipped in with five. In a rarity, junior guard Rowan Brumbaugh was held scoreless in the first half, missing on all five of his shots, including 0-for on his three tres attempts.
Final Score: Tulane 77 - Temple 66
Leading by as much as 19 in the second half, the Green Wave turned away the Owls at almost every one of their attempts to shorten the lead..
Owls coach Adam Fisher tried almost anything to get some sort of tempo going. Temple went to a 3-2 zone defensively with eleven minutes to go in the game. Woods immediately canned a deep three. The Owls then tried a three-quarter court press. That turned into a pair of Brumbaugh layups on the baseline.
"We talked about how we were tired of losing at home," Hunter said.
Leading the Green Wave scoring, sophomore Ringgold with a career high 22-points before fouling out with 37-seconds in the game. Woods followed with 19.
"It was our preparation," Ringgold told the media afterwards. "I feel like what we did in practice, really came to (fruition) in the game."
"I sat (Ringgold) down yesterday and told him, don't worry about the fouls," Hunter shared with us. "When he's aggressive, he's a really good player. I thought he started the game aggressive. I told him be that way and let me worry about whether or not you foul out."
Tulane’s leading scorer, Brumbaugh, never quite got his offense rolling, ending up with 11-points in the contest and going 7-10 from the free throw line mostly in the game’s waning minutes. What he didn't do on the scoreboard, he more than made up for in assists, doling out seven in the contest.
"I think we played smart tonight," Brumbaugh said. "We had a lot of guys making good cuts (towards the basket)."
"It was a solid win," Hunter wrapped up. "We played a team that was really hot and playing really well. What it does show is we can beat anybody in this league, and anybody can beat us."
Temple drops to 15-9 overall, 7-4 in the American. With the victory, Tulane improves to 14-10 on the year, 5-6 in American Conference play. Though it’s still early, the win puts the Green Wave in better position for the AAC post-season tournament in early March. The top-10 teams in the league advance to Birmingham. The win keeps the Wave in the 8th slot.
Having won two of their last three, Tulane hits the road for Mardi Gras. They'll be in Birmingham to play UAB on Sunday afternoon, then in Denton to battle North Texas on Thursday, February 19th.
Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.