Temple Men’s Basketball has displayed one major flaw thus far this season, rebounding.
During Temple’s last four games, in which they lost three and hardly beat Drexel, the Owls have been out-rebounded 148 to 103. However, a large portion of this came from the blowout at the hands of Georgia. The Owls have only out-rebounded Tulane during this stretch of games, and they still lost to the Green Wave.
The team currently ranks dead-last in the American Athletic Conference for rebounding an average of 33.2 boards a game and a total of just 339 on the season. In comparison, the next lowest rebounding total in the conference is Memphis with 453 rebounds.
Temple also holds the worst rebounding margin in the AAC. In fact, they are the sole team within the conference that holds a negative margin at -2.8. This may be alarming, especially considering that the Owls rank 287th for this statistic in the country.
Other NCAA rebounding ranks for the Temple is as followed: 313th in total rebounds, 296th in rebounds per game, and 216th in offensive rebounds per game.
Outside of Obi Enechnioya, Temple’s leading rebounder, the Owls top-4 rebounders are guards. Ernest Aflakpiu, the team’s starting center, is averaging just 2.7 boards a game. This can be attributed to the team’s design for guards to run the floor, as well as the significant minute difference between the top-4 rebounding players and rest of the team.
Rebounding is a key factor in any game and the rebounding battle often dictates the winner of a game. Temple will need to reevaluate their rebounding strategy in order to break this mid-season lull.
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