After a comeback victory against Connecticut on Feb. 11, Temple needed a repeat performance on Saturday in the semifinals of the American Athletic Conference Tournament.
With six minutes, 17 seconds remaining in the second half and an 11-point deficit, the Owls used a run to cut the Huskies lead to seven but could not get any closer, falling to UConn 79-62 at the Amway Center in Orlando, Florida.
In the team’s previous meeting in February, the Owls defeated the Huskies 63-58 after trailing by 12 points with less than six minutes to play.
On Sunday, Quenton DeCosey converted a layup with 4:20 remaining in the game to cut UConn’s lead to seven points. The senior guard then stepped to the free-throw line with an opportunity to trim UConn’s lead to six.
DeCosey missed the free throw and the Huskies pushed their lead back to double digits two possessions later, finishing the final 4:20 of the game on a 15-7 run to advance to the championship game of the conference tournament.
DeCosey finished the game with 14 points on 4-of-17 shooting from the field. In the team’s two games in the conference tournament, DeCosey shot 7-of-30 from the field.
After scoring 17 points on 66 percent shooting in Friday’s 79-62 win against South Florida, Jaylen Bond scored a team-high 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field.
The Owls were 12-of-22 from the free-throw line on Saturday. Of the five Owls that attempted a free throw, senior guard Devin Coleman was the lone Owl to shoot better than 50 percent from the line.
After jumping out to an 12-4 lead following a jump shot from junior guard Josh Brown with 14:05 remaining in the first half, the Huskies used an 11-2 run to regain the lead 15-14 with 10:27 remaining.
With the lead they would not relinquish the rest of the game, the Huskies used a 20-4 run over the next seven minutes to increase their lead to 16 points.
The Huskies, who shot more than 55 percent from the field and 3-point range, made seven of their final 10 shots from the field in the first half to lead 39-28.
After starting 2-of-2 from the field and scoring the team’s first five points, sophomore forward Obi Enechionyia finished the game 0-of-11 from the field.
The Huskies had three players score 10 or more points, including 19 points from Shonn Miller and Daniel Hamilton after the team’s four-overtime victory against Cincinnati on Friday.
Michael Guise can be reached at michael.guise@temple.edu or on Twitter @Michael_Guise
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