Men's Basketball Gets to 20 Wins With a 66-54 Victory Over Houston

Thursday, February 26

Liacouras Center

7:00 p.m.

Temple University

20-9, 11-5AAC

Houston

9-18, 1-14AAC

Houston

Temple

Jaylen Bond

Photo by: Mitchell Leff

Men's Basketball Gets to 20 Wins With a 66-54 Victory Over Houston

2.26.15 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

PHILADELPHIA - Four players scored in double figures as Temple men's basketball used a big second half for a 66-54 win over visiting Houston on Thursday night at the Liacouras Center. Junior guard Quenton DeCosey led the way with 16 points and tied his career high with nine rebounds, helping the Owls notch their 20th win of the season.

Temple head coach Fran Dunphy, who stands just three wins away from 500 in his career, has now led the Owls to 20+ wins seven times in his nine seasons at the helm.

Junior forward Jaylen Bond tied DeCosey for team-high honors in rebounds with nine, while also scoring 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting from the field. Senior guard Will Cummings added a game-high seven assists to 14 points, and senior Jesse Morgan scored 10 points.

Temple trailed by five at halftime but went on to outscore Houston 37-20 while shooting over 55 percent from the field in the second half.

There were four ties in a high-scoring first half, but three of those ties came after Temple's final lead of the period which was 10-8 in the first four minutes.

After the final tie at 26-26 with 7:26 remaining, Houston took the lead and held it for the remainder. The Cougars' largest lead of the half was five, which they matched at the break, taking a 34-29 lead into the locker room.

The Owls hit six three-pointers in the first half, with both Cummings and Morgan hitting two apiece.

Bond scored four points including a monster one-handed dunk as part of an 8-0 Temple run to start the second half, giving the Owls a three-point, 37-34 lead at 16:19. Temple held Houston to just a single point and no field goals for over seven minutes, leading by as many as six during that stretch.

After the Cougars scored six in a row including their first field goal of the half, the Owls made another run to begin pulling away. With the game tied at 41-41, Bond scored six more points and slammed another dunk as part of an 11-2 run that gave Temple its largest lead of nine, 52-43 with 8:19 remaining.

Just two minutes later, back-to-back layups for Cummings gave Temple its first double-digit lead, and Devin Coleman extended the advantage to 15 with a reverse layup followed by a fast break layup. Over the final four minutes the Owls got a pair of buckets from DeCosey to keep Houston from coming within fewer than 12.

Temple will have a full week before its next game, a 7:00 p.m. contest at East Carolina on Thursday, March 5 (ESPNU/1210 AM WPHT).

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