FORT WORTH, Texas – Temple looked like it was in good shape in the late moments of the first half of Thursday night’s second-round American Athletic Conference tournament game against Tulsa.

The Owls were holding a 14-point lead and still managed to take a 12-point advantage into halftime. Steve Settle III had 15 first-half points and guard Zion Stanford was right behind him with nine, as the pair continued to help a team playing without guards Jamal Mashburn Jr. and Quante Berry.

The second half was another story.

Temple, like it has so often this season, stopped shooting well, and a free fall ensued. Tulsa, which came into the game having lost four of its final five regular-season games, including one to the Owls, heated up.

When the dust settled, seventh-seeded Temple had missed all 10 of its second-half three-pointers and clanked 11 missed free throws during the course of the game. It all piled up into a 75-71 loss to 10th-seeded Tulsa that ended the Owls’ season with a disappointing 17-15 record, well short of any expectations the program once had back in November.

In a way, Thursday night’s loss was a bit of a microcosm of the season as a whole. The Owls looked to be one thing at first but turned out to be something entirely different altogether.

A promising roster that included Mashburn, Penn State transfer Jameel Brown, St. Joe’s transfer Lynn Greer III and an improved Berry offered hope that head coach Adam Fisher and his staff would be working with a deeper and more experienced backcourt.

Instead, Temple’s season fizzled out Thursday night with nine mostly healthy scholarship players on the bench. Center Mohamed Keita injured his knee around the midway mark of the first half.

Mashburn missed eight of the season’s last nine games with a toe injury. He was the nation’s second-leading scorer when he got hurt. Greer, after serving a nine-game suspension to start the season due to NCAA infractions that occurred at St. Joe’s, played in just five games before Fisher suspended him indefinitely due to “conduct detrimental to the team.” Suffice it to say, he fell well short of being the point guard and floor leader the Owls were hoping for.

Brown played in just eight games before missing the rest of the season due to personal reasons and will end up as a likely medical redshirt.

And Berry? He never wound up playing Thursday night.

When Fisher was asked if Berry’s absence had anything to do with reaggravating the finger injury that affected him late in the regular season, the second-year head coach said, “Not to my knowledge. He told us he couldn’t play today.”

Berry had that conversation with his head coach during Thursday morning’s shootaround.

It all left Fisher offering up a flat but fair response after the game.

“Great credit to Tulsa. They made more plays than we did and dominated the second half,” Fisher said. “I'm really proud of our team. We had injuries throughout this season. Guys had to step up.”

It wasn’t that simple. Fisher’s team shot an anemic 24% (7-of-29) in the second half, with players like guard Matteo Picarelli (1-for-9) and forward Elijah Gray (2-for-10) struggling through particularly rough shooting spells.

Temple’s first half opened up in a less than ideal manner—with two fouls by forward Babtunde Durodola just 74 seconds into the game. Fisher yanked the freshman before the Owls even scored a point.

The Owls’ offense started their attack on the Golden Hurricane defense, sinking their first three shots from beyond the arc. Settle continued to be the catalyst, scoring 15 of his 22 points in the first frame.

“Trying to be aggressive,” Settle said. “I felt like when I’m aggressive, good things happen. So just trying to do what I could to put us in the chance to win the game.”

Temple also forced four Tulsa turnovers on the defensive end. The Owls’ hot start on both ends of the floor allowed them to push the lead to 27-22, and eight unanswered points turned it to 35-22 in the blink of an eye. Temple continued to surge and eventually went into halftime with a 42-30 lead while shooting 54% from the field.

The Owls had the opportunity to continue to add to their lead but came out flat instead after halftime.

Everything that could have gone wrong did. Not having a true point guard didn’t seem to hurt the Owls in the first half, but it came back to bite them in the second half. Temple’s offense stagnated without Berry bringing the ball up the floor, and its first-half shooting touch evaporated. The Owls missed six of their first eight shots from the field to begin the second half as their lead started to dwindle.

On the flip side, Tulsa (13-19) nailed seven of its first nine second-half shots from the field, and the Golden Hurricane cut Temple’s lead to just one by the 10-minute mark of the half.

“We allowed missing shots in the second half to dictate our defense,” Fisher said. “That's where I was disappointed, because you're not going to make shots all game.”

Temple’s shooting struggles bled to the charity stripe. Six of the Owls’ 11 missed free throws came in the second half and left easy points off the board.

Tulsa’s defense also became stingy and clamped down on both Stanford and Settle. Stanford found himself being swarmed by defenders as soon as his hands touched the ball. Settle was in a different position, but his luck shooting the ball fizzled out. He made just a single field goal in the final 20 minutes of play and instead had to rely on getting to the free-throw line to get his buckets.

Tulsa eventually got some of its shots to go down. Forward Jared Garcia had his way with Temple’s defense in the second half and scored 14 of his 20 points in the game’s final 20 minutes. He hit a three, his first since Feb. 19, to cut the deficit to just one with 10:47 to go and didn’t stop there.

Garcia drilled two more threes in the waning moments of the game and Temple had no answers for the senior forward. Guard Dwon Odom, who dished out a game-high eight assists, got into foul trouble, but Garcia filled the void with his two remaining threes. One gave Tulsa the lead at 68-67 with 2:19 to go, and the next put the Golden Hurricane ahead by four with 1:01 remaining.

“I think we played hard and physical,” Fisher said. “It's something we've done all season long. We missed 11 free throws. I think we're top five in the country getting the foul line. We did what we wanted, we just had to make the ones when we got there. You're not going to make all 35, but you hope to make a little bit better percentage.”

For Settle, Picarelli, Shane Dezonie and Mashburn, Thursday marked the final game of their Temple careers.

Stanford, who more than doubled his scoring output as a sophomore this season in averaging 12.9 points per game, said he wants to assert himself even more next season.

"I feel like next year with me being an upperclassman, upperclassmen are known for being leaders and showing the underclassmen how to do things, just being a mentor to the younger players," Stanford said. "I feel like that will be my role next year."

Watch Thursday night’s postgame press conference here.