City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The third time was indeed the charm for Quenton DeCosey against Central Florida.

Temple’s senior wing had three looks at a go-ahead bucket against the Knights in the final minute of the game--and after missing the first two, he made the third one count. His leaning jumper from 17 feet lifted the Owls to a 63-61 win in an American Athletic Conference matchup at the Liacouras Center on Saturday afternoon.

Despite making only five of his first 17 shots of the afternoon, DeCosey had no hesitation about taking the last one.

“I was confident,” he afterwards. “On the previous shots, they just didn’t drop, so I just stayed with it, and I made it when we needed it the most.”

DeCosey’s heroics were set up when Temple (18-10, 12-4 American Athletic) got the ball back with exactly a minute on the clock after UCF’s Daiquan Walker, a Philadelphia native, had just tied the game with two foul shots for the last of his game-high 21 points. The Owls’ 6-foot-5 wing found himself in an iso situation with the shot clock running down, but his shot from just inside the 3-point arc missed everything.

However, the ball happened to glance off a UCF player before going out of bounds, giving the Owls two seconds to get another look. Point guard Josh Brown found DeCosey open in the corner, but a quick-trigger triple hit front iron--and Brown grabbed the rebound, leading to a Temple timeout with 20 seconds left and a pressure release for DeCosey.

“Major relief, because that means we get to take the last shot and whatever happens,” DeCosey said. “If we miss the shot we go into overtime, so major relief that he got the rebound.”

DeCosey got another iso situation, and after getting his defender up in the air, his jumper from just beyond the fall shot dropped with 3.2 seconds left.

UCF’s A.J. Davis hit front iron with a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer and Temple escaped with the win.

Afterwards, Temple coach Fran Dunphy said he had no problem with DeCosey taking all three game-winning attempts.

“He’s earned it, he’s earned that right, he’s been around a long time,” the 11th-year head coach said. “I just had a feeling that in the previous possession where he shot probably shot not a such a good shot, that he was going to come back. He has no fear, he thinks he’s going to make everything, and I felt pretty confident that he would do a good job of at least getting us a good look.”

DeCosey finished with 16 points, second only to sophomore forward Obi Enechionyia’s 18 for the team high. Temple's now 13-1 on the season when DeCosey hits for 15-or-more, including wins the last 13 times he's done so.

Junior point guard Josh Brown wasn’t needed in the scoring column (2 points) but chipped in nine assists against one turnover and eight rebounds.

The Owls were forced to settle for jump shots much of the game due to the presence of Central Florida center Tacko Fall. The 7-foot-6 freshman, a dominant defensive presence due to his other-wordly length, finished with five rebounds to go along with a 13 points and 14 boards.

Temple took 26 3-pointers, making nine (34.6 percent), while UCF (11-16, 5-11) settled for a season-high 31 triples but only made eight (25.8 percent). The Owls as a whole shot just 23-of-66 (34.8 percent), their worst performance as a team since making 34.2 percent against Cincinnati in a win back on Jan. 16.

“I think it’s hard to challenge a guy that’s 7-6,” said Enechionyia, who at 6-9 still looked short compared to the UCF big man. “Anytime you can put him in ball-screens and get him away from the basket you want to do that but when he’s down in the paint it’s hard to get a shot up against that.”

Enechionyia's strong game--he added eight rebounds--continued a breakthrough second half of the season for the 6-foot-9 sophomore, who's finished in double figures in six straight and nine of the last 10 games.

Against UCF, he finished 8-of-16 from the floor and 2-of-6 from 3-point range, where he came into the game shooting 42.6 percent on long-range attempts.

“There’s no a day that goes by at practice where afterwards he’s not shooting at least 100 jumpers," Dunphy said. "He gets his feet set, I haven’t seen too many people who shoot it as well as he does at that forward spot when he gets his feet set.”

Temple’s season continues on March 3 with a game against Memphis, the second-to-last game of the regular season. The Owls finish up at Tulane (March 6) before the AAC tournament runs March 10-13 in Orlando, Fl.