FORT WORTH, Texas — Temple Men’s Basketball entered Dickies Arena Saturday night just 80 minutes away from its first American Athletic Conference Tournament championship. Now, the team that finished with just five wins in regular season conference play left the building 40 minutes closer to a trophy.
Temple held a six-point lead with 45 seconds left, but FAU refused to go away, scoring five unanswered points to cut its deficit to one with 10 seconds remaining. Guard Shane Dezonie missed two free throws three seconds later, and FAU had the ball with a chance to win.
FAU forward Brenen Lorient had a shot to win the game, but Temple guard Hysier Miller stole the ball and dove on it, sealing the win and a title shot for the 11th seed.
Temple (16-19, 5-13 American Athletic Conference) defeated FAU (25-8, 14-5 AAC) 74-73 Saturday night at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas. Temple will make its first-ever appearance in an AAC conference championship game and is the first AAC team to win four games in the postseason tournament.
“Our approach is the same,” Fisher said. “We’ve been in this situation. We’ve been down eight. It’s all about staying together. We’re gonna make some adjustments, and we talked about those adjustments at halftime. It’s easy to say,it’s really hard to go execute.”
Miller shined in the second half, commanding Temple’s offense as it scored 49 points in the final period. Miller scored 18 of his 21 points in the second half and forced four steals, including the one that clinched the win.
“Just trying to find ways to get my team the basketball,” Miller said. “Trying to find ways to get stops. If you can get a steal, we can get out on transition, and I think that helps our teams a lot.
Temple struggled in the first half. Guards Jordan Riley and Matteo Picarelli drained back-to-back threes to take a four-point lead, but FAU quickly took control of the game.
FAU shut Temple down for the next 10 minutes, going on a 19-3 run taking an emphatic 21-9 lead in the process. FAU center Vladislav Goldin had his way with Temple’s defense early, scoring 11 points in the first half of play.
Temple went scoreless for nearly five minutes during FAU’s run, but they began to chip into the lead as the half closed. Riley and guard Jahlil White led the charge, and its 12-point deficit was trimmed to six in the blink of an eye.
FAU’s leading scorer Johnell Davis, was a non-factor, hitting just one shot and scoring four points. FAU still shot 52 percent from the field despite Davis’ struggles, and Temple was unable to capitalize, trailing by eight at the half.
“To me, the message was simple,” Fisher said. “I don’t think we were playing good basketball, and you go into the locker room and you’re down eight, we’ve been there all season. We were just talking about, what do we need to do to clean up?”
Temple came out of the locker room firing on all cylinders, hitting seven of its first 10 shots to knot the game up at 46. FAU matched that when Goldin hit three shots, but the rest of the team struggled, shooting just 3-7 in the first seven minutes.
FAU went ice cold with 11 minutes left in the game. A seven-minute span without a field goal gave Temple an opportunity to take the lead for the first time since the 18-minute mark of the first half. They used a 7-0 run to take a 57-50 lead with about eight minutes remaining, finally gaining the upper hand. Temple outscored FAU 28-11 after falling behind 42-34 in a 11-minute span.
Davis found his stride in the second half, scoring 14 of his 18 points in the last 20 minutes of the game. FAU scored six of the final eight points but couldn’t get a shot off on its final possession of the game.
“Just so proud of this group,” Fisher said. “These guys have just stayed together. They believe in each other. Everybody has stepped up. I couldn’t be more proud of a group of young men that have bought into something, and just believe.”
Temple will play its fifth game in as many days tomorrow when they take on UAB (22-11, 12-6 AAC) in the conference champinship game at Dickies Arena at 3:15 p.m.
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