After losing Eric to knee injury, Temple cruises past Richmond

FOR THE SECOND consecutive game, Temple had to play without one of its big men.

On Saturday, at Dayton, never an easy place to win, the Owls were missing center Lavoy Allen, who had an ankle injury. Didn't matter; they won easily.

Last night at the Liacouras Center, where they haven't lost in nearly 14 months, they were down starting forward Micheal Eric. Only this time, it's for a while. The 6-11 junior fractured his right patella on a freak play at Tuesday's practice. Now, he's done for the season, as are his seven points, six rebounds, 1.5 blocks and 20 minutes a game.

Richmond was in town, in a matchup of second-place teams in the Atlantic 10. Again, the Owls responded, to the tune of 73-53.

"It's unfortunate for Mike," said junior guard Ramone Moore, the team's top scorer. "We're going to miss him a lot. It's kind of sad. He's an important part of our team, and he was getting better every game. But you've got to move on."

The 23rd-ranked Owls (20-5, 10-2 A-10), who host Saint Joseph's on Sunday before heading to Duke on Wednesday, have won seven straight overall and 20 in a row on North Broad Street. They're one loss behind Xavier in the conference standings, tied with Duquesne. Those are the teams the Owls lost to. But that seems like a long time ago.

The Spiders (20-7, 9-3), who lost to Temple in the A-10 final last March, 56-52, had won their last eight on the road, as well as five of their last six against ranked opponents.

"When you make shots, it looks like you know what you're doing," said Temple coach Fran Dunphy, whose team went 30-for-54 from the floor, 7-for-14 from the arc. "That's not who we are. We played our best game of the year, I thought. About as good as we can."

They also held the Spiders to a season-low total, which never hurts. It was also the fewest points Richmond had scored since losing to Owls in that A-10 title game.

"I think if you're good, and tough and intelligent - and we have some good ingredients with this group - you say this guy's out and someone else has to pick it up and take his place," Dunphy said. "When this kind of thing happens, your first concern is always for the guy. He's such a good man, who worked hard to get where he is. So when you get the news, that's pretty devastating to your guy. It's a shame. You're not worried so much about the team. They have that resiliency about them. They'll come together, form a support system with one another and be OK.

"You kind of ride it out, up and down the line. If we're going to be good, that's what we have to do. He's a big body. We'll miss his presence. We're in a good stretch right now, but we've got a long way to go."

The Owls were up by as many as 12 late in the first half, but it became a five-point game early in the second. Not for long. They scored 16 straight in a little less than 4 minutes, and that was pretty much it. The margin got as large as 23.

"One thing I told our guys was in our last home game against Fordham, we had a big lead, but they came back," said Moore, who finished with 24 points on 10-for-15 shooting. "That was in the back of our mind. We didn't want to let that happen again."

Allen, whose sprained left ankle still wasn't 100 percent, played 37 minutes and contributed eight points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks. To go with his usual solid defense. Juan Fernandez, who'd been in a shooting slump, had his second straight monster effort. At Dayton, it was nine assists and no turnovers. This time, it was 20 points, which tied a season high, on 9-for-10 shooting. And another zero turnovers, in 30 minutes. His lone miss was a rushed 30-footer as the shot clock was about to expire, after getting a late pass from T.J. DiLeo.

"It was [his] fault," Fernandez joked. "I hope I can say [the slump's] over. I was trying to get my confidence back. Today was a big game for me, personally. But it was a good team win. We got [Richmond] behind us.

"I definitely wasn't thinking about myself. I was just trying to step my game up to help everyone else. You miss, because you think too much before you shoot. So you try to put it up without thinking. It's not an easy thing to do."

Moore has been there.

"Two weeks ago, I went through a bad stretch," he said. "You have to keep your head. We were [still] winning."

Richmond, which converted 39.3 percent from the field, got 15 points from Kevin Anderson, the reigning A-10 Player of the Year. Leading scorer Justin Harper, the reigning A-10 Player of the Week, had 14, four below his average.

"We do a great job of protecting our home court," Moore said. "That's always an important thing . . . It's going to be tough [without Eric]. It's hard to replace him. You hope Lavoy doesn't get in too much foul trouble. If we just do our job, we'll be good."

It's not as if there's another option. The bench will be shorter, the lineup smaller. But Rahlir Jefferson has played significant minutes before. And Khalif Wyatt, a guy a lot of teams would like to have, will just have to play more.

The Owls can still do a lot of things in the next month or so. It'll just be a little harder. And the last person who'd ever use it as an excuse is Dunphy.

"That's the first time [Allen's] run much in a week," he said. "Again, he's a horse. A strong, strong guy."

Like the one he just lost. *