City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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With Temple’s NCAA Tournament at-large qualifications very much up in the air, the Owls need every win they can get. Avoiding a disaster loss to South Florida in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference was a necessity.

Led by an impressive day from its frontcourt, Temple played loose and confident in running past the Bulls for a 79-62 win to advance to Saturday’s semifinal round.

Senior forward Jaylen Bond had 17 points for the AAC regular-season champions, who also got double-digit outings from sophomore forward Obi Enechionyia (13), senior wing Quenton DeCosey (14), junior forward Mark Williams (10) and senior guard Devin Coleman (10).

Williams, who was just 7-for-28 (25.0 percent) from 3-point range all year long, knocked down all three of his long range attempts on Friday afternoon.

"He definitely stepped up today," Enechionyia, who was limiited to 17 minutes due to foul issues, said to reporters in Orlando. "Any time I get in foul trouble or make some bad mistakes like that, it's important that he can come in and pick us up."

Bond, a 6-8 forward who’s in his second year of eligibility with Temple after playing his first two seasons at Texas, had one of his most complete games of the season, adding eight rebounds, four steals and three assists while going 8-of-12 from the floor.

"Staying out of foul trouble early, I was able to be more aggressive on the defensive end," he said. "I was able to come up with some easy steals by just being in the right place at the right time."

As a team, the Owls shot 45.3 percent (29-of-64) overall and 38.5 percent (10-of-26) from 3-point range, grabbing 15 offensive rebounds and forcing equally as many turnovers.

South Florida’s Jahmal McMurray (team-high 16 points) cut Temple’s lead--which began at 4-2 and lasted the rest of the game--to 35-27 on a 3-pointer at the end of the half, but the Bulls didn’t maintain any of that momentum.

A 9-2 Temple run to start the second half expanded the lead to 15, and after USF cut that down to 10 it quickly ballooned up to 56-36 with 12 minutes remaining thanks to a 3-point play by Bond followed by a triple from Coleman.

Last year, Temple lost in the semifinals to Southern Methodist, and then watched the following day as their name was left just out of the Field of 68.

"I think that having that feeling from last year, we all remember it, we all remember how it felt, not making the tournament," Enechionyia said. "So, that's something that we all want to experience getting to the tournament and getting to play late in the season. So, having that feeling in our minds and just remembering that I think it's motivated all of us."

There’s no SMU in the field this year, with the Mustangs self-banned from the postseason due to impending NCAA sanctions, so the Owls will get either UConn or Cincinnati in tomorrow’s semifinal (3 PM).

Temple beat each team twice during the regular season. They don't care which team they get, with one sole focus--to make the bubble irrelevant.

"Our main goal is to win this tournament to solidify us being in the NCAA Tournament," Bond said. "So that's our main goal right now.