A Temple guard tradition: Shizz Alston making huge leap as a sophomore
Temple sophomore combination guard Shizz Alston is following a recent pattern of other former Owls standout backcourt players who made a quantum leap after a humbling first season.
Sophomore combination guard Shizz Alston is following a recent pattern of other former Temple backcourt players who made a quantum leap after a humbling first season.
Guards often have to show patience under coach Fran Dunphy, but it has proven for many topflight performers to be worth the wait.
After averaging 2.0 points a game last season, Alston is the Owls' leading scorer at 14.2.
Here are some other players whose example he has followed.
Khalif Wyatt averaged 0.5 points as a freshman in 2009-2010 and increased his averages each year to 10.1, 17.1, and 20.5 as a senior when he was Atlantic 10 player of the year.
Similarly, Will Cummings averaged 1.4 points as a freshman in 2011-2012 and eventually would average 14.8 points as a first-team, all-American Athletic Conference selection as a senior.
Quenton DeCosey, who graduated in 2016, averaged 1.9 points as a freshman and 15.9 points as an all-conference senior.
Now, here comes Alston, on a torrid recent pace, where he has averaged 24 points in his last three games. The 72 points he has scored in these games is nine more than he totaled all last year.
"His basketball IQ is really good and his competitiveness is really starting to arrive," Dunphy said about Alston, whose father Levan played at Temple in the mid 1990s.
Temple guards over the years form a close fraternity and Alston, a product of the Haverford School, has recently kept in touch with Wyatt and Cummings.
"Khalif told me to be aggressive and that is what he did his sophomore year," Alston said.
Cummings had more direct orders.
"Will said to start winning some games," Alston said.
That talk with Cummings came before Wednesday's 77-66 home win over Memphis that snapped Temple's three-game losing streak.
Now the Owls will look for two in a row for the first time in more than a month when they visit Houston in Saturday's 10 p.m. AAC game.
Temple (11-10, 2-6 AAC) last won two in a row in December (beating NJIT and Yale). It won't be easy against the Cougars (14-7, 5-4).
Alston says the game that turned things around for him this season was an 81-77 win over then No. 19 West Virginia in the finals of the NIT Season Tip-Off on Nov. 25 at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. He had just eight points, but added six assists and two turnovers against a swarming West Virginia defense.
"They press a lot and I felt if I could handle that, I could handle anything," he said. "That game gave me a lot of confidence."
Alston is also second in the AAC with a 3.1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Dunphy says he'd like to see improvement on defense, but for now, Alston's value is clearly shown by one statistic - minutes played. After averaging 10.1 minutes last year, while not playing in two games, he is fourth in the AAC with 35.5 minutes per game, and like many other top recent guards, he's making the most of the increased playing time after a year of learning.
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