After junior guard Josh Brown’s layup tied the game at 65 with two seconds left, redshirt-junior Daniel Dingle fouled Memphis’ Ricky Tarrant. Jr. with 1.2 seconds remaining, sending the senior to the free throw line.
Tarrant converted a pair of free throws to give Memphis a 67-65 victory against Temple (8-7, 3-2 American Athletic Conference) on Wednesday at FedExForum.
The Owls, who led by as many as 11 points in the second half, had a chance to win the game after Tarrant’s free throws, but senior guard Devin Coleman’s shot from behind the 3-point line missed as time expired.
With 24 seconds remaining in the game, senior forward Shaq Goodwin split a pair of free throws, giving Memphis a 64-63 lead—its first advantage since the 7:28 mark in the first half.
On the Owls’ following possession, Brown drove down the center of the lane and turned the ball over as he attempted to take the lead with a layup.
Temple missed eight of its final 10 shots from the field, including Coleman’s fadeaway jump shot from the left block with 48 seconds left after Goodwin tied the game at 63 with a pair of free throws.
After a jump shot from Brown gave the Owls a 48-38 lead with 15:00 remaining in the second half, coach Fran Dunphy’s squad missed 10 of its final 16 shots and turned the ball over six times.
Coming into Wednesday’s game, the Owls turned the ball over nine times per game, which ranked No. 1 in Division I out of 346 teams.
Temple lost despite holding the lead for more than 35 minutes of Wednesday’s contest.
The Owls forced 12 turnovers in the first half but only turned the Tigers over twice in the second half.
Brown led the Owls in scoring with 15 points on 6-of-16 shooting. Senior guard Quenton Decosey and senior forward Jaylen Bond joined Brown as the lone Owls who scored in double digits.
Of the Owls who took more than one shot, none shot 50 percent or better from the field. As a team, the Owls shot 27-of-72 from the foor. Wednesday was the ninth game this season Temple shot worse than 40 percent from the field.
Temple, which led by as many as eight points in the first half, entered halftime with a 37-31 lead after leading for the final 5:58 seconds of the first half.
The Owls shot 40 percent from the field in the first half and scored 14 points off Memphis’ 12 turnovers.
Bond scored 10 of his 14 points in the first half on 5-of-9 shooting.
The loss was the Owls’ first since Jan. 2, when the squad lost to Houston by 27 points. Following the loss, Temple defeated Connecticut, the then-No. 23 team in the AP Top 25 poll, and East Carolina.
Freshman forward Ernest Aflakpui got his first start as an Owl on Wednesday. The freshman was 1-of-1 from the field, scoring two points and grabbing three rebounds.
Michael Guise can be reached at michael.guise@temple.edu or on Twitter @Michael_Guise
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