AAC Media Day: Temple Looks to Return to Relevance Among Growing Conference Foes

 By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

PHILADELPHIA – A year ago after Temple clawed its way through an early pre-season game, Temple coach Tonya Cardoza quipped, “I know this much. We’re not the number two team in the (American Athletic Conference).”

Her reference was to the AAC’s annual media day a few weeks earlier when the forecasts by the conference coaches were made and Temple was one summer removed from its best league performance and an NCAA opening round loss to Oregon on a blocked shot of a potential game-winner as time expired.

That moment enabled the winning Ducks of the PAC-12 to go on to the elite eight twice while Temple not so much.

The reason is between the time the 2018 AAC ballots were submitted and announced the Owls lost Alliyah Butts, their expected superstar point guard, to a knee injury, leaving the suddenly quite youthful squad to an operation by committee.

Along the way, Cardoza’s bunch lost other players to reduced time by injuries forcing the veteran Temple coach, who spent 14 seasons at powerful UConn on the staff of Geno Auriemma, to using some inexperienced freshmen and sophomores by necessity and still others who might not have ever seen the light of day.

The result of all that was a plunge to a 12-19 overall record and a dreary 3-13 performance in the conference that had one of the few bright spots near the finish. That’s when the Owls upset Wichita State 72-59 in the AAC tourney opener and suffered a competitive season-ending loss in the next round to a vastly improved UCF squad 77-70.

Of course the one benefit out of the misery  was the talented then-newcomers are able to arrive to their sophomore season more tooled for the experience. Combine  that with Butts returning for a fifth season back in the mix and it might be like old times.

The league coaches also seem to agree by rewarding Temple with a sixth place collective vote narrowly behind Cincinnati in the this year’s forecast which was announced with other preseason honors at the AAC’s annual media day Monday once again held right in this area down at the Marriott Airport Hotel.

So why not higher for the Owls if things are improved?

Well, first the ongoing frontrunner at the top of the pile is the annual national championship contender UConn bunch, who have yet to lose an AAC game in the previous five year history of the conference that was carved out of the breakup of the solid old Big East.

However, for the second straight year the Huskies are not returning as the defending national champs following successive stunning upsets on time-expiring shots by Mississippi State in 2017 and eventual national champion Notre Dame last April, both in the semifinals to ruin unbeaten runs.

We’re not going to say much more about the Huskies in this file because multi-talent Team Guru newcomer Erin Kate Dolan will be along in the next 24 hours with photo-talent arrival at last Melissa Willhouse also in the mix this season.

Both are summa cum laude recent communications graduates, Erin, a Media resident out of Penn State who appears at the light of dawn several times a week locally on PHL17 with the overnight sports report, while Melissa, a Marlton, N.J, resident out of Rider, continues with her own Willhouse-Media.com business and her other ongoing job as the racetrack photographer down at Harrah’s Philadelphia in Chester.

Behind UConn, Jose Fernandez has built quite the program at USF in Tampa, which will be the host area for the Women’s Final Four next April.

Furthermore, while Temple skidded south, UCF and Houston, who are picked third and fourth, rose to enjoy their best seasons in the AAC, while Cincinnati also had its best conference effort though in a surprise move Jamelle Elliott, a former UConn star and Cardoza’s good friend from their time as Auriemma assistants, was let go.

She was replaced by Michelle Clarke-Heard who rebuilt Western Kentucky into relevance.

And that’s where Temple should be if everything comes together, though the injury bug has already attacked the Owls with the loss of highly-regarded newcomer Destiny Samuel, who was hurt before the team made its first official practice for the road ahead.

“We’re working hard every day, trying to improve on some things, being more consistent in practice,” Cardoza said of what she has seen so far in the early going at the workouts in McGonigle Hall. “Just trying to get people getting acclimated to new roles.”

Butts and sophomore standout Mia Davis were named to the Preseason All-Conference second team.

As for Cardoza’s impressions of Butts’ rehab to date, “She’s working hard every day trying to get back to where she was. Like any player who’s been through that kind of uncertainty, just being a little timid.”

Butts thinks she has gotten over that aspect, saying on Monday, “One day in practice everything just started to click.”

As for the bonus experience on the roster, the Temple coach said, “It helps. They’ve been thrown in the fire so they have that experience and the newcomers are very solid players, they will be thrown into the fire as well. They are very talented.”

As for the schedule, it is not a killer but it isn’t a bakery shop of cupcakes either.

“We have a little of everything to help us get better every day,” Cardoza explained.

Temple will have one tuneup game, hosting USciences on October 30 in McGonigle Hall at 7 p.m., which has become a local Division II powerhouse under Jackie Hartzell, who was the runnerup for the vacant La Salle job in town.

There will be a lot of road stops, playing at Ole Miss of the Southeastern Conference as well as at the defending SEC champion South Carolina, Dawn Staley’s national powerhouse, both slates are return games from last year’s visits here.

There’s also stops at defending Big East champion DePaul, Atlantic 10 contender Duquesne, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference contender Marist, and Atlantic Coast Conference contender Miami.

In the conference, the annual UConn visit on the home-and-home series, one of two games to be played in the larger Liacouras Center, will be January 20, while USF comes to town Jan. 5.

In the Big Five, Temple goes to Saint Joseph’s, another A10 contender, Big East contender Villanova, and Ivy  contender Penn, while La Salle, under first-year coach Mountain MacGillivray, a former Quinnipiac associate head coach returning to the area, is the lone home game in the City Series round robin.

“The city league is just, no matter what year you’re going through, it’s always going to be competitive,” said Cardoza, whose Owls have won several Big Five crowns in her previous 10 seasons here when she arrived after Staley’s departure.

“The players are competitive now. They look at that rivalry as something serious, knowing you can’t let any of those games slip away.”

The other two freshmen are guard Marissa Mackins of North Carolina, and forward Alexa Williamson of Houston, Pa., while some of the veteran standouts are sophomore Nicolette Mayo and her sister Emani, perhaps the more prominent of the two; sophomore Mia Davis, and forward Breanna Perry.

As for the rest of the ACC team picks behind the Owls, SMU and ECU are 7th and 8th, followed by Tulane, Wichita State, Memphis and Tulsa.

Preseason player of the year is no surprise in UConn senior Katie Lou Samuelson, a likely WNBA first-round pick next spring, as is teammate Napheesa Collier, another conference first squad choice, along with Huskies’ Crystal Dangerfield, USF scoring sensation Kitija Laksa of Latvia, and Houston’s Jasmyne Harris.

Joining the Temple duo on the second team are Houston’s Angela Harris, USF’s Laura Ferreira, and SMU’s Alicia Froling.