Previously the head coach for Penn men's basketball from 1989-2006, Temple's Fran Dunphy will coach his final game against the Quakers this Saturday. (File Photo)
The Quakers want nothing more right now than to send their old coach home with a defeat in their final meeting.
Penn men’s basketball is playing with high intensity against Temple in their last game ever against former coach Fran Dunphy. A fast and loose offensive attack combined with a high level of physicality on defense has given the Quakers a 35-25 lead at halftime.
The Quakers also entered the Liacouras Center with the extra motivation of snapping a four-game losing streak. The Quakers (10-6, 2-0 Big 5) expected a tough battle from the red-hot Owls (14-3, 2-1), who are winners of their last four contests. Temple scored at least 70 points in each of those games, but the Red and Blue have pressured Temple’s dynamic scorers from the jump to a high degree of success.
On the offensive end, the Quakers haven’t been afraid to pull up from behind the arc, shooting seven threes in just the first five minutes. By the end of the first half, 18 of the Quakers’ 28 shots were threes.
Leaning on the three ball may have hurt the Quakers, however, as they could not reliably translate their suffocating defense into points on the other end. Because of this, the Red and Blue were unable to put much distance between them and the Owls for much of the first half.
Junior forward Jakub Mijakowski was key for Penn’s offense. After checking into the game early on, he knocked down two threes to help the Quakers establish a small lead. Mijakowski again caught fire late in the half, hitting two more threes to put the Quakers up by as many as 12, giving him an impressive 14 first-half points.
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