Owls Battle Monday in Tudor Fieldhouse
12/18/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Dec. 18, 2011
Rice and Temple will each be looking to put disappointing losses behind them when the two parliaments of Owls go head-to-head Monday in Tudor Fieldhouse. Tip-off is slated for 8 p.m. and the game will be broadcast by 1560 The Game (KGOW) as well as televised by CSS.
Both Rice and Temple had three-game winning streaks halted over the weekend.
Rice, 7-3, is coming off an 87-81 home-court loss to Lamar on Saturday. Rice was down by as many as 16 points before cutting the margin to as few as four points with less than two minutes to play.
Texas outrebounded Temple 48-23, scoring 21 second-chance points in a 77-65 win on Saturday.
Temple's 6-3 record includes a pair of road victories (at Penn and Toledo). The Owls have played just two of their first nine games at home with the team's biggest win of the season being a 78-74 overtime victory against Wichita State for a third-place finish at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.
Temple senior guard Ramone Moore leads Temple with a 17.8 scoring average. At Texas on Saturday, he scored 13 points en route to his 1,000th career point.
Senior guard Juan Fernandez is also on the cusp of scoring his 1,000th career point. Fernandez was 2-for-8 against Texas, finishing with five points. He enters Monday's game against Texas with 997 career points.
Temple lost its leading rebounder when Michael Eric suffered a patella injury during practice in late November. Eric, who is expected to return at the start of conference play, was averaging 10.5 points and 11.3 rebounds through four games played.
After Eric's injury, Temple won its next three games before losing at Texas.
Junior forward Arsalan Kazemi is coming off consecutive 20-point games to raise his scoring average to 14.6 points per game and is also averaging 12.3 rebounds. Teammate Tamir Jackson is averaging 14.3 points and leads the Owls with 32 steals.
Both teams have struggled at the free throw line. Rice is shooting 67.8 percent for the season and is coming off a game against Lamar in which it made just 19-of-31 attempts. Temple is shooting 67.4 percent at the line and made just 10-of-20 free throws against Texas.
Following Monday's game, Rice plays at Texas A&M on Thursday.
