Basketball Game Preview: Temple Tigers vs. Southwest Patriots

The Temple Tigers will venture away from home to take on the Southwest Patriots at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday. Both squads will be entering this one on the heels of a big victory.

Temple is on a roll after a high-stakes playoff matchup on Saturday. They blew past Swainsboro 87-61. Given Temple's advantage in MaxPreps' Georgia basketball rankings (they are ranked 139th, while Swainsboro is ranked 327th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.

Meanwhile, Southwest entered their tilt with Banks County on Saturday with ten consecutive wins , and they'll enter their next game with 11. They really took it to the Leopards for the full four quarters, racking up a 79-41 victory. The game was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 41-19.

Southwest's win came from a few key players Temple will need to keep an eye on. One of the most notable was Chase Dupree, who shot 5-for-7 from beyond the arc and dropped a double-double with 27 points and 15 rebounds. Those 15 boards gave him a new career-high. C.J. Howard was another key player, going 6-for-11 from beyond the arc en route to 22 points and seven assists.

Southwest pushed their record up to 25-2 with the win, which was their fifth straight at home. Those victories came thanks in part to their offensive performance across that stretch, as they averaged 78.0 points over those games. As for Temple, they are on a roll lately: they've won 15 of their last 18 contests. That's provided a nice bump to their 22-6 record this season.