Another member on Seth Davis' all glue-team:To opposing guards, however, Temple is simply a royal pain. With his size, his long, spindly arms, his lateral quickness and his intellect, he has fashioned himself into one of the most lethal perimeter defenders in America. Just ask Duke's J.J. Redick, who scored 11 points on 3-for-18 shooting while being guarded by Temple in the third round of the 2005 NCAA tournament, when Temple was a redshirt freshman starter on the Tigers' Final Four team. Temple has also shut down such big-time scorers as Texas A&M's Acie Law (four points) and Tennessee's Chris Lofton (two). Last week, as the Tigers scored their two most important wins of the season, he forced Florida's Nick Calathes and Kentucky's Jodie Meeks to shoot a combined 2-for-14 from three-point range as the Tigers won both games. No wonder he was named a defensive All-America last season by Collegeinsider.com.
Temple has been a four-year starter at LSU, but for the last three years he has played point guard. This year, new Tigers coach Trent Johnson switched him to small forward so 6-1 sophomore Bo Spencer could play the point, but Temple remains an invaluable floor general. He leads the team (and is ranked fifth in the SEC) in assists with 4.1 per game and he is first in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (2-to-1). He is also fourth in the league in steals (1.86), he averages 4.5 rebounds and he's making 84.1 percent from the foul line. That should tell you Temple is capable of scoring more than his current average of 7.2 points a game, but since he plays with two of the highest-scoring players in the SEC in Marcus Thornton and Tasmin Mitchell, Temple knows his job is to get those guys open shots, not take a bunch of his own.
Temple is just as impressive off the court. In 2006, he was named a member of the SEC's academic honor roll, and last May he graduated from LSU with a degree in business administration. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree in business. That has endeared him to LSU's first-year coach, Trent Johnson, who was hired away from Stanford partly to rebuild the program's academic standing. "I'm not the kind of person who pays lip service to academics," Johnson said. The new coach likes smart players, and he is smart enough to recognize a high-quality glue guy when he sees one.
"He has good leadership, and it's real. It's not phony," Johnson said. "He's at peace with who he is. He's a very secure person. When Garrett speaks or asks a question, he knows what he's talking about. That's good leadership."
