After an impressive come-from-behind win at Houston on Sunday, the road doesn’t get any smoother for Temple. The American Athletic Conference-leading Owls, fresh off a 69-66 win over the Cougars, play on Tuesday at Tulsa, which is only 1½ games behind the Owls (17-9, 11-3).
Only four regular-season games remain for the Owls, who have their immediate sights set on the AAC regular-season crown. The long-range goals for the Owls are winning the conference tournament on March 10-13 in Orlando, Florida, followed by a run in the NCAA Tournament.
In the win at Houston, Temple erased a 54-44 deficit in the final 11 minutes. Sophomore Obi Enechionyia scored a career-high 26 points and senior Devin Coleman hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 15 seconds remaining, avenging Temple’s 77-50 home loss to Houston on Jan. 2.
“An unbelievable game for O,” Coleman said of Enechionyia's effort on Sunday. “We needed all of it. A great performance from him. Hopefully, that will carry into Tulsa.”
Tulsa (18-9, 10-5) won both its games last week and, on Monday, Golden Hurricane guard Pat Birt was named AAC Player of the Week after averaging 19.5 points in victories over Cincinnati and Central Florida.
In the first meeting of the season between the two teams on Feb. 4 in Philadelphia, Temple needed a game-tying three-point shot from Coleman with three seconds left in regulation to force overtime, where the Owls would eventually top the Golden Hurricane, 83-79.
During that previous meeting, Birt had a game-high 22 points. For Temple, Quenton DeCosey had 21 points, Enechionyia 17 points, and Jaylen Bond collected 13 points and 13 rebounds.
Close games have become commonplace for Temple, which has beaten Cincinnati 67-65 in double overtime, won 55-53 at Connecticut and won 62-60 at Central Florida. The Owls have lost 67-65 at Memphis and 64-61 at East Carolina.
“Down the stretch, when it gets close, we come together as a team and trust each other,” DeCosey, Temple's leading scorer with 16.4 points per game, said. “We did a good job [Sunday] staying together, finding a way to get the win. Beating Houston was a big-time win and now we just have to focus on our next game with Tulsa.”
Houston had handed Temple its worst loss of the season during the Jan. 2 game in which the Cougars led by as many as 30 points at the Liacouras Center.
“We were talking about [the Houston] game, that we needed this one and didn’t talk about the Tulsa game at all,” said Josh Brown, who had 10 defensive rebounds against Houston, and made two crucial free throws with six seconds left that put the Owls ahead by three points. “We have bigger goals and we want to win the conference regular season and go from there.”
Now the Owls’ attention is squarely on Tulsa.
The Golden Hurricane, whose strength of schedule is a league-best 23rd in the nation, shares third place in the AAC with Cincinnati. Sunday’s win at Houston preserved Temple's full-game lead over second-place SMU, which is ineligible for postseason. Tulsa and Cincinnati are both 10-5 in the AAC. A loss at Houston would have tightened the league standings even more. Temple and SMU would have shared first place, and Tulsa, Cincinnati and Houston would only have been a half-game behind.
“It’s really tight and packed at the top of the conference,” Enechionyia said. “If we had lost [at Houston], we would have dropped. It’s good to be in first place. We have to go to Tulsa and keep this going.”