Scouting La Salle

• TWEET
• SHARE
• SHARE

While Penn still has to take on Columbia tonight and Lafayette on Monday, there is no reason not to look ahead to the following game against La Salle.

This afternoon, I attended my second Explorers game of the year, a 68-52 loss to Temple at Liacouras and found three reasons that the Quakers should be encouraged.

1. The Explorers die by the three. La Salle opened the game shooting 7-for-10 from behind the arc as they built a double-digit lead. Darnell Harris notched five threes in the first seven minutes. But then the Explorers went cold, shooting 2-for-15 the rest of the way.

2. La Salle can't seem to put two good halves of basketball together. Today, the team in blue led 35-30 after 20 minutes, but fell apart on both ends of the floor, dropping the second half 38-17. Just before break against Florida International, La Salle trailed by 16 at the half before their big comeback and overtime win. And even in a 23-point win against Atlantic 10 weakling Duquesne, the Explorers lost the first half by eight.

3. The Explorers don't use their main weapon. Both times I have seen the team play, today and against FIU, NBA-bound Steven Smith has been underused. I'd take Steven Smith against Steve Danley in the post any day, but it's going to take a pretty significant change of gameplan for the Explorers to take advantage of that matchup on the 25th.

Some notes from today's game.

There's nothing stranger than watching a matchup of Big 5 teams at the Liacouras Center. It's too big, can't get loud, and there's something about music over the speakers that just doesn't belong at a college basketball game.

My favorite player in the Big 5 (next to Kyle Lowry) was conspicuously absent today. And by conspicuously absent, I mean that there was nobody taking up two seats on the Temple bench, as 6-foot-10 300-pounder Anthony Ivory is suffering from shin splints and did not even join the team today. The freshman, who is probably closer to 400 pounds than his listed weight, could be in for a short career if he can't get his weight under control.