EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ — In what was a battle of two undefeated teams, Temple suffered its first defeat of the season, as the #2/2 Duke Blue Devils (9-0) handed the Owls a 90-67 loss in Saturday’s neutral site affair at the Izod Center. Temple, off to its best start since 1987-88, fell to 6-1 on the season.
Freshman Quenton DeCosey led the Owls with a career-high 13 points on a five-of-six shooting day, including a perfect three-of-three from three-point range. Sophomore Anthony Lee hauled down a team-high nine boards, while senior forward Rahlir Hollis-Jefferson tied his career-high in blocks with three and tallied six points along with six rebounds, four assists and two steals.
Temple struggled from the floor, hitting just 39.7 percent of its shots, while Duke, led by the hot hand of Seth Curry (23 points on 7-11 shooting), connected on 47.5 percent overall and 60 percent (12-20) from three-point range.
“I thought their defense was really good and we added to it by rushing,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “We got out of character and didn’t have the patience we needed. When you play a team like Duke you have to manage every possession and we didn’t today. Our guys played hard and we were a little bit scared early. We got some nervousness going for us early and that put us on our heels a little bit.”
The Owls jumped out to an early 4-0 start on baskets by Lee and Hollis-Jefferson and the Temple faithful who made the trek up the turnpike were having visions of last January’s 78-73 upset. The Blue Devils then ran off eight straight points, six coming from Rasheed Sulaimon (8 points, 7 assists), to take the lead for good.
Duke exploded on a 16-4 run two minutes later to take command of the contest, 29-14. Five different Blue Devils scored in the decisive run.
Trailing 46-32 lead at the half, the Owls cut it to 10, 49-39, on a Will Cummings (7 points) lay-up. Duke then rattled off 18 of the next 22 points to open up its biggest lead, 64-43, with 21 minutes remaining.
The Owls did not fold, however, and closed within 12 points twice late, the last at 72-60 with 6:38 left on a basket byJake O’Brien (8 points).
Duke then scored the next 11 points to put the game away. After a free throw by Plumlee, Curry scored the next seven points for Duke, the last a 3-pointer with 3:38 left that gave the Blue Devils an 80-60 advantage. Plumlee, who finished with 16 points and 14 rebounds, capped it with a three-point play.
Ryan Kelly and Quinn Cook each added 14 points for Duke.
Temple will return to the Liacouras Center Wednesday evening to take on the Towson Tigers at 7:00 p.m. (OwlAccess/1210 WPHT AM).
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