No. 16 Wichita State has the opportunity to get head coach Gregg Marshall his 80th true road win on Thursday at Temple.

Temple and Wichita State have met only three times—with The Shockers not winning a single one.

The two most recently met in November of 2011 at the Puerto Rico Tipoff where Temple won by four in overtime.

This season, The Owls are 11-10 overall and 3-6 in The American. They are most recently coming off of 28-point blowout win against UConn.

“They are playing really well right now, they just blew out UConn. They are, obviously well-coached,” head coach Gregg Marshall said. “They just do it right. They are not real complicated. They just guard you, they share the ball and they can all score it.”

Temple’s backcourt produces the most points for The Owls: Quinton Rose and Shizz Alston.

Rose averages 14.2 points per game, 4.4 rebounds per game, and 2. 4 assists per game. He produced 17 points in their most recent game along with three assists and zero turnovers.

Alston averages 13.1 points per game, 3.5 rebounds per game, and 2.4 assists per game. He dropped 18 against UConn and had four assists and zero turnovers.

“He’s got some really good players,” Marshall said. “We’ve got to go up there and play well to win. We know that.”

The Owls average 67.5 points per game with a -1.0 scoring margin. They also have a counterproductive rebounding margin with a -3.6 margin and averaging 34.2 rebounds per game.

“They’ve got our full and undivided attention,” Marshall said. “As I’ve said, we’ll have to play well to win there.”

The Shockers rank fourth nationally in rebound margin at 10.5 and have only been outrebounded once this season. Their scoring margin is at 14.4 averaging 83.4 points while holding their opponents to 69.

Wichita State also ranks third nationally for assists after averaging 19.1 assists per game. No team has out-assisted The Shockers in the entire month of January.

Temple and Wichita State have both their meetings of the season within two weeks of each other. The two face off again Feb. 15th. Marshall said the benefits of playing games close together all comes down to the outcome of the first meeting.

“It depends on if we win the first game. It’s easier on the scout, because generally they don’t change a whole lot in a couple weeks,” Marshall said. “It just depends on if you win, lose…a lot of factors that go into that.”

Junior forward Markis McDuffie has family ties to Temple. His sister, Sierra McDuffie, is in her second season as a graduate manager on the Temple men’s basketball staff.

Senior center Shaquille Morris is just 20 points away from reaching 1,000 career points. He will be the 46th member, just the eighth player in Marshall’s era, of the 1,000-point club.

Morris scored exactly 20 in Sunday’s win over Tulsa.

Tipoff is at 6 p.m. and will be broadcasted on ESPN2.