Game 13- Temple: The Good, Bad and Ugly

Last night's game was closer than its final score indicates, but there was still more bad and ugly than good. That said, here's the breakdown...

The Good: Tyler Bernardini's performance. T-Bern shot well from three-point land, hitting 4-of-7 en route to a team-high 17 points. He did struggle a little more when he attacked Temple's bigger defenders, shooting just 1-7 on two-point attempts. But still, if Bernardini's range is returning, it's a great sign for the Quakers heading into Ivy play. In his last four games, Bernardini has scored 17 (Temple), 17 (La Salle), 22 (Kentucky) and 18 (Marist), leading Penn three times.

The Bad: For just the second time this season (and in the last 27 games), Zack Rosen failed to reach double figure scoring. Now this isn't automatically a bad thing. As Jerome Allen said after the game, he was looking to distribute more tonight, and as the point guard he can't be faulted for that. But when things start getting out of hand, especially with something like turnovers, Rosen needs to ratchet up the aggressiveness. And last night, he took just four shots, and perhaps even more importantly, only went to the foul line twice.

The Ugly: Well this one's easy, because few things are uglier than 23 turnovers. As Ari points out in his story, turnovers were the story of the game. Penn's 23 led to 28 Temple points. Worse than the final total was the way the turnovers occurred. It wasn't great Temple defense forcing turnovers, though they did have 14 steals, but rather Penn mishandling the ball or making ill-advised passes. And they seemed to come in bunches, helping to fuel Temple runs and deflate the Red and Blue.