LIU Blackbirds Routed By Temple Owls At Barclays Center

From the desk of:  THE HOOPS OF FLATBUSH

 

Saturday Final:

Temple Owls     101

LIU Blackbirds  65

LIU/BROOKLYN BLACKBIRDS: The Numbers Are Sickly.

Saturday, Barclays Center hosted a battle of the birds.  The LIU Blackbirds made the short trek south along Flatbush Avenue to host the Temple Owls.

Apparently, old habits are hard to break.  Despite last meeting over 40 years ago, Temple nonetheless picked up where they left off, securing their fourth victory in four attempts over the Blackbirds.  Here for the Brooklyn Hoops Holiday Invitational, The Owls were not kind about it either.  Patrons of the Kings County arena were witness to a rout.  Temple dismantled host LIU/Brooklyn by a 101-65 margin.

Little went right for the Blackbirds.  In fact, the numbers are sickly.  LIU was outscored 38-22 in the first half, and 63-43 in the second half.  At one point, Temple led by as many as 45 points, and collectively outscored LIU 38-20 in the paint.

In the first half, LIU shot just 23.8%, and for the game, shot a miserable 28.8% from the floor on just 17/59 shooting.  Ditto from beyond the arch, managing just 5/26, for 19.2% shooting.

The Owls dissected LIU with 22 assists, versus just 9 for LIU.  Jason Brickman, who tied for game high, had 6 of them.  Gerrell Martin was the only other LIU starter to record an assist.  Off the bench, Glenn Feidanga and D.J. Griggs recorded one each.

Gerrell Martin and E.J. Reed both tied for the team lead with 13 points.  With ten points, Troy Joseph was the only other Blackbird to score in double-digits.  Jason Brickman finished with nine.  E.J. Reed also pulled down a game high 12 rebounds.

LIU played most of the second half without starter Landon Atterberry, who fouled out after totaling just 7 minutes of play, and Glenn Feidanga, who fouled out as well.

All five Temple starters scored in double digits, led by Dalton Pepper's game high 26 points, who shot 10/12 from the field, and 6/8 from beyond the three.  Pepper also pulled down 10 rebounds, all on the defensive glass.

The LIU Blackbirds record now stands at a 4-7, with two more out of conference games left to play in December, both in the Lone Star State, versus South Houston State, and Texas State.  While the situation is far from dire, there is hope for the Blackbirds season yet.  The team expects sixth year senior forward Julian Boyd to make his return from injury in January, hopefully in time to begin their conference schedule.



Mike.BTB