Temple Handily Defeats Charlotte

               After only defeating Charlotte by one point in an 89-88 victory February 6th, the Temple Owls manhandled the 49ers in the teams second go-around.  After an impressive win over a strong La Salle team on Thursday night, the Owls came out of the gate firing.
 The Owls scored the first 6 points of the game before Charlotte knotted it up at 12.  That would pretty much be the last time the game was even close.  Temple took a commanding 39-24 lead into the locker room at halftime and continued their dominance in the second half.  While the Owls only outscored the 49ers by 5 points in the second half they still won by a total of 20 points with a final score of 71-51. Charlotte has now lost four of its past five games, while Temple has won three straight. The Owls shots 48.3% from the field while the 49ers shot only 27.4% and an atrocious 8.3% from three-point range.
                 The Owls were led in the contest by senior guard/forward Scootie Randall who scored 18 points while also grabbing 6 rebounds, with 5 of them coming on the offensive end.  The Owls also received big contributions from guard Khalif Wyatt and forward Jake O'Brien who had 12 and 10 points respectively, with Wyatt also dishing out 7 assists.  The win improved the Owls to 19-8 overall and 8-5 in Atlantic 10 play.  Temple who has NCAA Tournament hopes, moved themselves slightly closer to receiving an at-large bid with today's win.  The Owls entered the day among the last four teams in the tournament in Joe Lunardi's bracketology, but after a dominating win, may have solidified their case to move up in the seeding's.  Temple has four games remaining before the A-10 Tournament, with the season finale coming at home against 24th ranked VCU.  The Owls will need a strong showing over the remainder of the season to keep their at-large hopes alive.  With VCU being the only tough game remaining on their schedule, Temple cannot afford any slip-ups, or they will require a solid A-10 Tournament run to make up for it and still have a chance at dancing in March.  As it stands now, the City of Philadelphia has 3 teams with legitimate at-large chances in Temple, La Salle, and Villanova.  All three teams will need to finish strong in order for Philly to be well represented in the NCAA Tournament.