Well, that was ugly.
Two days after the Penn women’s strong win at Merrimack, they had their weakest game of the season at Temple, losing 61-47.
Yes, the Owls threw a frustrating, fast-handed defense at them, but the Red and Blue had the larger role in the loss, shooting a meager 28% from the field (to the Owls’ 38%) and committing 28 turnovers (leading to 31 — just over half — of Temple’s points).
No sequence better illustrated Penn’s futility than a possession early in the fourth quarter. Temple led by 12, and Penn point guard Mataya Gayle missed a three, with Temple getting the rebound. But Lizzy Groetsch immediately tied up the ball, with Penn regaining possession. Gayle missed another three, with the rebound going to Penn forward Jordan Obi. Obi missed a three herself, the ball going to Temple — but Penn’s Ese Ogbevire stole it away a second later. Stina Almqvist was the next Penn player to miss the three — Groetsch scored the rebound this time — and then Obi tried once more from outside, for the fifth miss.
That was just a stretch of 45 seconds. All told, the visitors failed to score a point in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter. They never got closer than nine points down the rest of the way.
Penn (6-5) and Temple (4-5) would seem to be evenly matched, and they looked that way through the first quarter: Penn led 10-8 on an Obi three with a couple of minutes left in the period. But then Temple started an 11-point run and never trailed again.
To be fair, Penn was wrapping up the most demanding stretch of its schedule: a road trip to Milwaukee for a drubbing at nationally ranked Marquette seven days earlier, then a loss at Villanova, then the road trip to north of Boston to beat Merrimack, and finally the short trip to Temple.
For Penn, nobody had much to brag about. Almqvist led with 18 points on 5-for-14 shooting, while Gayle had 14 points, going 6-for-16. Obi, two days after scorching Merrimack for 32, cooled off to nine points on just 3-for-13 shooting, though she added 10 rebounds.
Senior forward Ines Piper led three Owls in double figures with 16 points on 6-for-14 shooting plus 10 rebounds. And fifth-year guard Aleah Nelson recorded her 500th career assist (to go with 1,000-plus points).
The Quakers now get a break — well, starting with finals — before hosting a challenging Maine team Dec. 30 and a less-than-challenging Gwynedd Mercy the next afternoon.