The Temple Owls didn’t just get over the hump on Wednesday night. They catapulted over it. Junior guard Dionte Christmas scored 23 points and everybody else chipped in as the Owls rolled to a 78-59 victory over 20th-ranked Xavier at The Liacouras Center.
While Christmas and Mark Tyndale (22 points, 8 rebounds, 7 assists) were the offensive stars for Coach Fran Dunphy’s squad, it was Sergio Olmos, Ryan Brooks, and Chris Clark that scored all the points during a 10-0 run that broke open a tight game midway through the second half.
Eventually, that 10-0 run became a 24-4 runaway, as the Owls stretched the lead from 50-48 to 74-52. That’s when Xavier Coach Sean Miller pulled star guards Drew Lavender and Stanley Burrell off the floor. Miller had seen enough.
Except for the opening minutes of the first half, the Musketeers had all kinds of trouble against Temple’s man-to-man defense. They started by hitting 6 of their first 10 shots. They finished 22 of 57 from the field (38.6 percent).
Game after game, the Owls have been getting better on the defensive end recently. This one may have been their best.
Xavier is literally the most balanced offensive team in the nation, with six different players averaging double figures. But everything worked backwards against the Owls.
Top three-point shooter B.J. Raymond was bothered by a thigh bruise and went 0 for 6 from three-point range. Junior forward C.J. Anderson went 0 for 6 from the field. Lavender, a genuine all-America caliber point guard, finished with no assists.
For much of the night, Xavier’s best offensive weapon was 6-9 sophomore Jason Love, a 55 percent free throw shooter who came in averaging 5.2 points per game. He went 5 for 6 from the line and finished with 13 points. Sophomore forward Derrick Brown was 1 for 8 from three-point range when he entered the building. He went 2 for 2 against the Owls.
Backwards.
But everything was almost perfect for the Owls.
Sophomore point guard Luis Guzman sparked a hot start, hitting three three-pointers in the first five minutes of the contest. Tyndale was also on target, though Christmas struggled a bit.
Trailing 19-15, the Owls pushed ahead with a 12-2 run. They had a 30-27 lead at the half.
Xavier pushed back with a 7-1 run to start the second half. The teams traded baskets for several minutes, and it started to look like the Owls might have trouble maintaining the increased scoring pace.
Then came Christmas.
With the Owls trailing, 41-39, the balance clearly shifted when the Atlantic 10’s leading scorer grabbed an offensive rebound and skipped into the corner to nail a three-pointer. One minute later, he twisted in the air and hit another one. Forty seconds after that, he stepped back and hit another one.
Suddenly it was the Musketeers who were scrambling to keep pace with Christmas and the Owls. They couldn’t do it.
The decisive 10-0 run started with a 10-foot jumper from Olmos. Clark followed with a driving floater. Then Brooks and Clark hit consecutive three-pointers.
Xavier burned three timeouts in a three-minute span, but Miller couldn’t stop the bleeding. The last two three-pointers came after Miller switched from man to zone.
And while the Owls piled up the points, Olmos started piling up blocked shots. He had four in the last nine minutes. He also finished with 10 rebounds.
At one point, the Owls went with a five-guard lineup – made possible when Love went to the bench. Xavier’s other frontcourt regular, 6-9 senior Josh Duncan, is a perimeter-oriented forward. Temple freshman Lavoy Allen totaled three fouls in 15 minutes and was generally a non-factor in the outcome.
Temple’s man-to-man defense was the biggest factor, along with a 13 for 27 shooting mark from three-point range.
Afterward, Dunphy lauded the team’s attention to detail. Defensively, that meant alertness in making switches and good positioning. Their timing was also much better than usual.
The Owls finished with eight steals, four less than their season-high. But they didn’t miss any steal attempts and leave their backside exposed, as has often been the case this season. On those occasions when they gave up dribble penetration, Olmos or Allen were usually there as a backstop. And they didn’t give up any baskets on inbounds plays.
It was the little things.
The result was a big thing.
Temple earned its first win over a ranked opponent since beating No. 6 George Washington in the Atlantic 10 Tournament quarterfinals in March 2006.
It was Dunphy’s first truly big win on North Broad Street.
In fact, it was Dunphy’s first win against a ranked opponent since Penn beat Temple in November 1998.
The Owls snapped a three-game losing skid and improved to 7-8, 1-1 in A-10 play. Xavier dropped to 14-4, 2-1 in the A-10. Temple will visit Saint Louis on Sunday afternoon.
Fran Dunphy Postgame Comments: Listen to Audio
Sean Miller Postgame Comments: Listen to Audio
Tyndale/Christmas Postgame Comments: Listen to Audio
Harvey Levine's Xavier-Temple Gallery
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