Huge Comeback at USF Leads to Thrilling Victory for Men's Basketball

Saturday, March 8

Tampa, FL

2:00 PM

Temple University

9-21, 4-14

USF

12-19, 3-15

Temple

USF

Photo by: Joseph V. Labolito/Temple University

Huge Comeback at USF Leads to Thrilling Victory for Men's Basketball

3.8.14 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

Box Score (PDF) Dunphy Interview

TAMPA, Fla. - Quenton DeCosey's jumper at the buzzer lifted Temple men's basketball to a 66-65 win at USF (12-19, 3-15) and was a fitting end to a huge comeback for the Owls over the last eight and half minutes.

Dalton Pepper and Will Cummings scored 25 of Temple's final 28 points to erase what was an 18-point deficit with nine minutes remaining. Pepper finished with game-highs of 20 points and eight rebounds, while Cummings finished with 14 points along with tying his career-high of eight assists.

DeCosey, playing all 40 minutes, scored 18 points and grabbed seven boards.

Temple (9-21, 4-14) has now earned the #8 seed at next week's American Athletic Conference Championships, and will face #7 seed UCF at 9:30 p.m. (EST) on Wednesday, March 12 on ESPN2. The winner will advance to face #1 seed Cincinnati in the quarterfinals. The entire tournament will be hosted by Memphis at the FedEx Forum.

The Owls used a 9-0 run to cut the 18-point deficit in half with 6:40 remaining. After going down by 11, Pepper and Cummings combined for 13 straight points to tie the game at 61-61 with 1:50 left. To get there, the two hit nine field goals in a row.

The lead then changed hands three more times, and USF's Chris Perry scored a putback with 4.6 seconds left to give the Bulls a one-point lead. The Owls used two timeouts to talk it over, and the ball ended up in DeCosey's hands. His short jumper from the right side found the bottom of the net as the buzzer sounded, giving Temple its first conference road win of the year.

The comeback was an improbable one given Temple's struggles to that point. The Owls finished with 16 turnovers in the game, six above their season average, but did not commit one in the last 10 minutes.

The first half got off to a promising start as the Owls jumped out to a 7-2 lead, but sloppy ball-handling was their undoing down the stretch. The game stayed tight through the midway point, but the Bulls began to take advantage of Temple's offensive struggles and miscues.

USF used a 12-0 run to take an 11-point, 25-14 lead with 7:06 to go. Cummings picked up three fouls in a four-minute stretch to force him out of the game.

DeCosey got the Owls out of their slump with back-to-back buckets, and he later scored again to complete a 10-2 run that put the Owls within three, 27-24 at the two-minute mark.

The Bulls answered with six straight points for a nine-point lead in the final minute of the half, but DeCosey found his way through the lane on Temple's final possession to narrow the deficit to 33-26 at the break.

His 11 points led Temple at halftime, and tied for the scoring lead with USF's Cody Allen, Jr. The Owls committed nine first-half turnovers, just one shy of their season per-game average, while the Bulls turned the ball over just twice.

Allen finished with 18 points to lead three players in double figures for USF. Martino Brock scored 16, and Victor Rudd added a team-best eight rebounds to 13 points.