After looking sluggish for most of the first half, Temple came into the second period in its game against Rice trailing by five points and in need of a spark. That spark came in the form of guard Tiarra East.
East woke up in the third quarter after only making one shot from the field in the first half and scored 17 of Temple’s 24 points in the quarter. She scored the team’s first nine points coming out of halftime on perfect shooting to tie the game and followed it up with eight straight points almost four minutes later to take the lead.
Temple never let go of the advantage and ballooned its lead to as many as 22 points. It put on cruise control in the final quarter to extend its win streak to five games behind a career-high 33 points from East and 18 points from guard Tarriyonna Gary on their senior night.
Temple (18-10, 12-5 American Athletic Conference) took control against Rice (14-15, 7-10 AAC) for a 83-63 win Friday night at The Liacouras Center to clinch a double-bye in the conference tournament. It is the first time since the 2011-12 season that Temple has won five straight games by double digit points.
“It just felt really good to get this win,” Gary said. “We knew we wanted this game, especially because Rice knocked us out of the semi-finals last year. But we’re not done yet, just because we’re done here doesn’t mean we’re done.”
Temple entered the game looking for revenge. The last time Temple faced Rice was the AAC semi-final game where it fell 60-57 on March 12, 2024. Gary looked to make sure the same thing didn’t happen and scored the first five points within 50 seconds.
However, Rice guard Aniah Alexis single-handedly made sure Temple wasn’t able to break away in the first quarter. The freshman scored 12 points and grabbed three rebounds in the first 10 minutes. Temple was given a free pass as Alexis picked up her second foul early in the second quarter and she only added three points after her first quarter performance.
Temple hauled in two defensive rebounds which fueled a four-point run to lead 9-5, but that was the highlight of its rebounding in the first half. Temple grabbed the same amount of offensive rebounds as Rice but was outrebounded 25-19 through the first 20 minutes.
“Defensive rebounds,” said head coach Diane Richardson. “To allow the team to get offensive rebounds and second chance points is not something I really like, so we’re going to work on that and continue on it.”
Rice took advantage of Temple’s two-and-a-half-minute scoring drought by embarking on a 6-0 run. Alexis and guard Dominique Ennis both made threes to take a 16-11 lead with less than four minutes remaining in the opening quarter.
Temple’s defense was struggling guarding the arc in the first quarter, leaving a Rice player open four times. Rice took the open shots and connected on three of them from downtown. Temple could only nail two threes, with both coming from Gary and one of them came at the buzzer to enter the second half down 22-19.
Temple opened the scoring in the second quarter but was quiet for the majority of the 10 minutes. Rice went on another 6-0 run, fueled by four free throws, to take a 31-23 lead halfway through the second quarter. Temple found a spark with four consecutive points but despite its increased offensive play, it still went into the locker room trailing 38-33.
Temple completely flipped the script in the third quarter. East scored nine points to tie the game at 42 four minutes in. She rode the momentum and scored two three pointers and a jumper to give her team the 55-51 lead. East started the game just 1-5 but she shot 9-11 from the field in the second half.
“I just been working on my game like all my life and then the whole summer,” East said. “So I just know what it takes to be able to do that.”
Temple continued its groove into the final quarter and scored the first six points to take a 63-53 lead. Its equal opportunity offense showed its form and Temple took complete control on both ends of the floor to cruise to a 20-point win.
Temple forced 15 Rice turnovers on the night while it only committed six itself. Once Temple forced Rice to lose the ball it continued it on the other side of the court and scored 21 points off turnovers. Rice was only able to pick up five points off Temple’s miscues, which all came in the second and third quarters.
“That’s what we wanted to do, we wanted to speed them up,” Richardson said. “Kaylah [Turner] and Tristan [Taylor] put pressure on them, pressure, pressure, pressure. So in the second half our defensive pressure was just turned up a notch.”
Temple will travel to Charlotte (9-18, 4-12 AAC) to close out the regular season on March 4 at 6:30 p.m.
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