The Opening Tip: Temple

Tuesday's 60-59 loss to Central Connecticut State left an unavoidable conversation within Conte Forum's swirling maelstrom. The Boston College program hadn't lost to an NEC team since Bryant's 2012 upset win in Chestnut Hill, so losing the third game of the season to a team that previously lost a 20-plus decision against another mid-major team led to the inevitable discussion that followed over the next couple of days. The highs and lows of a year - the runs of a basketball season - left one of the sourest aftertastes hanging over a program in need of an early season build.

None of that was intended to disrespect the Blue Devils, but the road forward for Boston College's basketball season needed to analyze what happened on Tuesday night while concurrently burying it to the annals of a 100-year history. The Eagles had, after all, shot poorly enough, particularly on the outside shot, that their defensive effort to hold an opponent to within a customary sub-60 range landed short of a victory, so the path leading directly into Saturday's game at Temple left definitive goals and a clear-cut mission on how exactly to fix what went wrong during a bad night at the office..

"They had 60 points," said head coach Earl Grant after the loss, "and for most of the game, they were about to be in the low 50s, so I thought we were really sound defensively. We didn't make as many shots from threes and didn't finish at the rim at the level that we can, but that team was about to be in the 50s, so I thought we defended well. I thought we played hard, but offensively, the ball didn't bounce our way, and there's nothing we can do about it at this point."

Tuesday still stands as BC's most recent game, so it won't quite fade into the rearview mirror until a result or performance offers proper contrast. For that to happen, the Eagles have to take the floor on Saturday with the knowledge that the conversation is still hanging over them, an acceptance piece that rightly serves as a motivating factor while concurrently not controlling the plan of attack.

Simply put, BC can't avoid the conversation but can't reinvent its wheel against a team that's performed admirably with a style that'll force the Eagles to shoot a volume-heavy lift from outside. Statistically speaking, the two games against Delaware State and La Salle allowed Temple to prevent two-point shots at a clip that's 10 percent better than the national average, and the experience of stopping and clogging driving lanes and passing points means that the Owls are capable of daring an opponent to shoot beyond the arc.

Understanding how BC snakebit itself with poor outside shooting therefore steers this game right back into the conversation that existed over the past three days, that also means that the Owls are very much an opportunity to right the self-inflicted heartburn from the Central Connecticut game.

Here's what to watch for in BC's trip into Philadelphia's Big Five:

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Temple Storylines (Rocky Balboa Edition)

No, maybe I can't win, maybe the only thing I can do is take everything he's got. But to beat me, he's gonna have to kill me, and to kill me, he's gonna have to have the heart to stand in front of me, and to do that, he's gotta be willing to die himself. And I don't know if he's ready to do that. I don't know. I don't know.

One of the more pivotal scenes in Rocky IV features Rocky standing at the foot of his staircase while Adrian berates him for taking the match against Ivan Drago. Apollo is recently dead after trying to battle the genetically enhanced Soviet superfighter, and nobody is giving Rocky a chance to beat the man, let alone in the friendlier confines of a Moscow arena. Adrian refers to the match as suicide and tells Rocky that he can't win, which is a switch from the Rocky III pep talk when she actively boosts his confidence level over it being okay to lose the money and his sanity to defeat Clubber Lang. Then Rocky gets in the car, drives off, and Robert Tepper's "No Easy Way Out" hangs an insanely awesome montage of the previous three-and-a-half movies.

The negativity surrounding the CCSU loss was well-earned. BC exposed several causeways in its overall game and mindset if they aren't executing in a particular area, and the Blue Devil defense built on The Citadel's success at using the 3-2 zone switch to disrupt rhythm and timing. What we don't know, though, is just how bad one night is interpreted in the context of a season because BC didn't exactly tumble far enough down the analytics rankings to warrant an apocalyptic debate.

The KenPom ratings, for example, dropped BC to No. 105, which isn't a great number but really only represents a nominal 15-spot slide. The larger bulk of the loss was placed in a "Luck" rating that has nothing to do with the rating calculator and is more comparatively placed between an actual record and a correlated expected record. Being ranked in the 100s is therefore the result of some really poor luck, and it places the Eagles in a class alongside UAB, Bradley, UNLV and Fresno State - all of whom ate a loss to teams situated significantly below them in the rankings.

Temple, meanwhile, is exactly as expected with a 2-0 record, but its NET rating actually measures lower than BC's overall performance through three games. Adjusting statistics for strength of schedule and efficiency matter within that context, and it's why Saturday is much more evenly matched than the initial numbers might hint.

I stopped thinking the way other people think a long time ago. You gotta think like you think.

That said, nothing from the first three games suggests a wholesale overhaul to BC's overall mentality. Grant's comments about targeting approximately 25-30 three-point field goals per game was prophetic through the first two matchups of the season, and shooting 36 percent against FAU proves that BC is capable of putting forward its best effort from beyond the arc.

"We had four or five more than we needed to take," said Grant of the CCSU game, "but with the way that our team has shown, making eight out of 34 or nine out of 34 is a good number. We made 7-for-34 where 10-for-34 was a good number, so we just needed to make three more threes. [Now], we took too many [because] we want 25-30, and we took 34 when they weren't falling the way they typically do."

Singling out Donald Hand, Jr., Grant admitted that his 1-for-12 was wholly uncharacteristic. Nobody shot the three well against The Citadel, but the belief within the program centers on what happens when those shots are falling. Even a 2-for-7 game against FAU for both Hand and Fred Payne amounted to a 29 percent success rate, and the idea behind the three-point shot is that 30 percent from three is statistically more relevant than a 50 percent shot from inside. Given the margin of defeat, it's not rational to believe in BC's tendency to change things when the coaches wholly believe in the players' ability to take - and hit - good three-point shots.

I didn't hear no bell.

Bill Simmons once joked that he intended to purchase the entire Rocky DVD box set only to remove Rocky V at the cash register and smash it with a hammer. Nobody under 30 years old even gets that joke anymore, so let's say this as clearly as possible: Rocky V is a bad movie. It's the worst one of the saga, it should've never been made, and it's a shame to associate Tommy Morrison with it despite Tommy's eventual refusal to box toe-to-toe with George Foreman during their 1993 championship fight. Actually…he won the title by refusing to punch with Big George, so maybe he was onto something.

Putting that aside, the scene where Rocky gets up off the street is one of the more poignant and overacted moments of the entire franchise. Balboa's near-death experience on the street brings him face-to-face with Mickey, who tells him to get up for one more round because he "didn't hear no bell!" We all knew Rocky was going to get up, but I still loved it.

This brings me back to Tuesday night for the final time because I didn't hear no bell. I'm a huge proponent of not looking too far into the future because I truly and deeply believe in variability. No team advances through postseason play without first experiencing success in November and December, and basketball is a unique sport in its ability to allow teams to absorb a really bad loss between now and the end of the season. In 2014, the No. 17 Michigan team lost to NJIT, Eastern Michigan and SMU during a four-game losing streak but got itself to 13-8 with a 6-3 record in Big Ten play before February derailed the season. Before that loss to the Highlanders, the Wolverines hung around No. 12 Villanova and beat both Oregon and Syracuse, and they'd later beat a nationally-ranked Ohio State team. That they didn't make the tournament was due to a larger body of work, but they were 6-1, 8-5, 10-6 and 13-8 before finishing with a .500 record.

That's the same Michigan team that infamously lost to Alaska-Anchorage after going 11-0 to start its national championship season in 1988-1989.

I'm not saying BC is a national championship contender, but I'm not saying anything, really. I'm saying that a loss to Central Connecticut State doesn't hurt a team if it steadily improves and gains a foothold over the rest of its season. There's a lot of basketball left.

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Question Box

How does BC slow down Derrian Ford?

Ford posted a 22-point performance against La Salle after scoring 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting against Delaware State, but his player profile as a fast and agile guard with four rebounds and four assists per game aligns him with a style designed to put key defenders on their back heels. His 34 minutes per game in each of the first two appearances of the season is a significant jump from last year's 21 minutes per game and the prior year's 29 minutes per game, but his increase in scoring average is accompanied by a 500 percent increase in his assist-to-turnover ratio.

That said, the defenses at both La Salle and Delaware State don't carry the same weight as BC's backcourt prowess. Even with a 1-2 start, the problems haven't been on the defensive end, and it's hard to judge Temple's win over Delaware State when the Hornets lost to Syracuse by 40 before dropping an 11-point loss to Niagara.

How does the frontcourt find its groove against Temple's bigger centers?

BC's forwards are at their best when Aidan Shaw and Jayden Hastings cover ground away from one another. Mashing them together against the Central Connecticut zone took its toll after Hastings sustained a temporary injury in the first half of Tuesday's game, so understanding how to spread them out while moving Boden Kapke into positions - either in a three-forward lineup or in a substituted, two-man front - advantageous to the BC offense will, in turn, open lanes for the attacking guards.

Like the previous two opponents, Temple runs smaller, so the 3-2 zone is going to rear its head at some point. From a defensive standpoint, that means forward Babatunde Durodola needs to avoid foul trouble, and stalwart guard Aiden Tobiason has to be neutralized from a position where his six-foot, five-inch frame can be properly utilized.

How do we approach a bad half of a rotisserie chicken?

My wife intended to make some type of cheese and rice casserole with shredded meat from a rotisserie chicken, but schedules and life ran into her ability to purchase the necessary ingredients from any local supermarket or food store. As a result, she took the chicken and decided to whip together a parmesan casserole with bow tie pasta and a bunch of shredded cheese. Essentially, it became one of those meals that closes out some of the ingredients that've been in the fridge for an indeterminate amount of time.

I thought the casserole was awesome, but eating it on Wednesday led to a gnarly case of food poisoning on Thursday and an awkward conversation on Friday morning. There's a container of this casserole that's still in the fridge, and neither of us have thrown it out because it'll likely get into the trash for Monday morning's municipal pick up. Getting home late on Friday night, I had a talk with her where I debated eating it ahead of my work schedule for Saturday.

She asked me why I'd go through with it again, and I wowed her with some of the most insane logic in my brain. One, do we think that I ate the bad half and is the half that's left in the fridge still the good half? Two, if it's a bad half, don't I still eat it and get it out of the fridge earlier than expected? Either way, it seems like a win-win.

There are times where I think she genuinely worries about my sanity.

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BC-Temple X Factor

Saleh: You came halfway around the world to watch me play basketball?
Jimmy: That's what I said.
Saleh: (pointing to his head) Are you healthy up here?
Jimmy: Never said that.
-The Air Up There

Fred Payne started his second season by shooting 4-for-18 for 13 points against Florida Atlantic and The Citadel. He posted seven rebounds with seven assists and committed few fouls while playing half of the game against The Citadel and nearly every minute against the Owls. Against CCSU, his minutes moved back to a more traditional long-term installation in the BC lineup, but his offense exploded to 17 points on 6-of-14 shooting.

Payne's been an all-purpose guard for BC in the first three games, but Temple's smaller lineup should enable him to slash to the basket and maybe elevate to the rim with a bit more freedom. He's been a threat at both ends of the court with five steals and 10 assists compared to the one turnover over the last two games, but he's overdue for a breakout type of performance that Temple offered La Salle's backcourt in its last time on the court.

It's true that Payne isn't as tall of an option as Jerome Brewer or Rob Dockery, but his player profile aligns with the way they've both attacked the paint and gotten to the rim. In one game, Dockery grabbed seven rebounds with two steals and eight total boards, and Brewer added a block in 24 minutes. Neither shot the ball with lethal efficiency, but ongoing attention on Donald Hand, Jr. should allow BC to facilitate an offense to a second option. Looking specifically at the backcourt defaults that conversation to Payne.

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Scoreboard Watching

College basketball finally started producing some of its more well-recognized drama on Friday when Texas Christian took Michigan to the limit in a four-point game in Fort Worth. Arizona and UCLA, meanwhile, produced low-scoring drama in a callback to the old Pac-12's heyday, and Samford gave No. 21 Arkansas everything and more in a four-point loss in Fayetteville.

In the ACC, whatever drama existed from Cal's Thursday night loss to Kansas State on the national stage didn't carry over into Duke's blowout win over Indiana State, and Georgia Tech ate its first loss after watching Georgia pull away with a second half rally past its largest in-state rival. Just one day earlier, though, the Golden Bears trailed by 21 at halftime before outsourcing the Wildcats by a 62-44 margin in the second half. Having trailed by 24 at one point, they lost, 99-96, in one of those games that makes college basketball fun.

Elsewhere, No. 2 Purdue earned its first marquee victory of the season by beating No. 8 Alabama on the road, and East Carolina escaped a near-disaster against Division II's Elizabeth City State with a 71-70 win at home. On the local radar, Stonehill and Fairfield went to overtime in Connecticut before the Stags won by two.

Saturdays are typically used for college football, but a basketball-heavy lineup sends Princeton to No. 25 Kansas for a mid-afternoon tilt before No. 3 UConn plays No. 7 Brigham Young at TD Garden in Boston at night. For the ACC, a midday start between Clemson and Georgetown precedes a busy day that includes No. 12 Louisville's game against Ohio. On the rest of the national radar, a game between Maryland Marquette adds some spice to the middle of the afternoon while Oklahoma's game against Nebraska in South Dakota allows for a bit of primetime drama.

Those of us willing to stay up until midnight have an opportunity to watch Utah Tech travel to Hawaii in a game that kicks off in the middle of the night..

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This Random Day In History

Besides being my wedding anniversary (happy anniversary, honey!), November 15 marks the day that Microsoft released the first-ever Xbox game console in the United States in 2001. As a sixth-generation console, it replaced the cartridge-based gaming consoles of the 1990s by competing with the CD-based Playstation 2. By the end of the year, it had become one of the best-selling game consoles in the North American market after Halo hit the markets in early 2002.

More than whatever Nintendo released in those days (shoutout: GameCube), Microsoft's arrival into the video game market ensured a console-based war that lasted well into the middle of the century's first quarter. It carried the Halo franchise where Sony had Grand Theft Auto, and the ongoing popularity of NFL-based Madden football games combined with the debut of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell titles to change the game for those of us who refused to gain sunlight for extended hours.

There was also that pesky Xbox Live that allowed subscribers to play games online. I never did in those years, but I'd like to think that it paved the road for my liberal use of a mute button whenever I'm playing Call of Duty games on the Internet.

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Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts

Cop: Do you know why I pulled you over?
Fletcher: I sped. I followed too closely. I ran a stop sign. I almost hit a Chevy. I sped some more. I failed to yield at a crosswalk. I changed lanes at an intersection. I changed lanes without signaling while running a red light and speeding.
Cop: Is that all?
Fletcher: No… I have unpaid parking ticket.
-Liar Liar

The honest assessment of the Central Connecticut loss forced Boston College to evaluate all of the different ways that something went wrong on Tuesday night. Moving forward, the key needs to focus on how to avoid replicating its performance while simultaneously embracing the challenges approaching on the future horizon.

I believe in the power of a long basketball season, and I believe in being able to push through the issues that plagued Tuesday night, but starting somewhere means starting on Saturday with the Temple game that's scheduled against one of the Northeast's more traditional teams.

Boston College and Temple tip-off at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon from the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Television coverage is slotted for ESPN with streaming service available through ESPN's direct-to-consumer platform for Internet and mobile devices. For viewers without access to the network, radio broadcast is available on WEEI 850 AM and mobile device apps where the channel is available.

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Players Mentioned

Jayden Hastings

Boden Kapke

Fred Payne

Aidan Shaw

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