North Texas dominated Temple Women’s Basketball throughout their matchup Tuesday, but Mean Green guard Shadasia Brackens stuck the dagger in the game. She drained a fall-away jumper as the third quarter closed, giving the Mean Green a 22-point lead.
The Owls fought back by cutting the deficit to eight with two minutes to play, but they could not get closer, dropping their first game of the calendar year.
Temple (8-6, 1-1 American Athletic Conference) fell to North Texas (11-3, 1-1 AAC) 74-63 Tuesday night at The Liacouras Center, earning its first conference loss of the season.
“A disappointing loss, but I’m more disappointed in our effort,” said Temple head coach Diane Richardson. “It took us till the middle of fourth quarter, then we played Temple basketball. That cannot happen. We’ve got to play defense from the very beginning to the end, that’s without question.”
Temple struggled to score the ball all night, shooting less than 30 percent from the field and an abysmal nine percent from three on 23 attempts. The percentages were both season lows, and the effort beyond the arc was the lowest figure since the Owls’ season-opening loss to Princeton on Nov. 7, 2022.
The Owls started slowly once again, shooting just 23 percent from the floor in the first quarter. Temple could not generate consistent offense and North Texas capitalized, as the Mean Green did not trail at all after the six-minute mark in the first quarter.
“I thought we didn’t make great decisions with our shooting,” Richardson said. “I think we should have gotten to the rim more. Obviously, they played tough defense and pushed us out a little bit, but we have the ability to get to the rim, our offense helps us get to the rim. We just didn’t do that today.”
Though guard Tiarra East posted a strong 21-point performance, forward Rayne Tucker was the only other player in Cherry and White to post double-digit points. This was the eighth straight game East had more than 10 points.
On defense, Temple could not contain forward Tommisha Lampkin, who led all scorers with 20 points and brought down 10 rebounds. Her dominance guided North Texas to the program’s first win as a member of the AAC.
“When we were in our offense, when we were able to get to the basket, we could,” East said. “But on the defensive side, I feel like we were just complacent today.”
Many of Temple’s key players could not find a rhythm. Forward Ines Piper and guard Tarriyonna Gary finished with zero points on a combined 0-12 shooting, and Piper fouled out of the game in the fourth quarter.
The Owls spurred a fourth-quarter comeback despite their shooting struggles, as the defense helped force 12 North Texas turnovers to cut the deficit to eight points with two minutes remaining. However, the Mean Green swarmed the Owls, not allowing open shots while hitting enough free throws down the stretch to put the game out of reach.
“You can’t have bad games,” Richardson said. “You can have mediocre games. You can’t have bad games; that’s just not acceptable. We’ve got to work on that, and we’ve got to work on consistency. Consistency has got to be the name of the game.”
Temple will look to bounce back on the road against Tulsa (12-3, 2-0 AAC) on Jan. 6 at 3 p.m.
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