Without its best player and the nation’s second-leading scorer, Temple still managed to take South Florida past regulation, through one overtime and into a second extra period Thursday night on the road.
But once that second overtime arrived, the Owls stumbled through some poor defense and disjointed offensive sets and eventually fell to USF, 100-91, at the Yuengling Center in Tampa.
Temple fell to 14-9 overall and 6-4 in American Athletic Conference play on a night when USF (12-11, 5-5) and the conference honored the Bulls’ late former coach, Amir Abdur-Rahim, who passed away back in October at the age of 43. Abdur-Rahim had taken Kennesaw State to the NCAA Tournament in 2023 and unanimously won the AAC Coach of the Year award last season after leading USF to a league regular-season title, an NIT win and the program’s first appearance in the AP Top 25.
With Jamal Mashburn Jr. out of action with a foot injury, Temple got a team-high 23 points from sixth man Zion Stanford and a double-double of 21 points and 10 rebounds from forward Steve Settle. Elijah Gray added 17 points off the bench and freshman guard Aiden Tobiason contributed 14 points, six assists and three rebounds in a career-high 40 minutes. And Thursday night marked the first time in the program’s history in which Temple had scored 90 or more points in three consecutive games.
Defensively, however, the Owls had no answer for a familiar face.
USF center Jamille Reynolds, who played at Temple two seasons ago, ate up Temple in the paint with a career-high 25 points and a game-high 12 rebounds. The 6-foot-11, 275-pound big man, playing for his fourth program in five years, scored 14 of his points in the second half but didn’t score or take a shot in overtime.
Instead, the Bulls relied upon guards Kobe Knox and Brandon Stroud, who combined to score 15 of USF’s 21 points across the two overtime periods. Knox finished the night with 17 points while Stroud added 15, and freshman guard CJ Brown’s game-high 10 assists came on a night when USF assisted on 26 of its 37 field goals and shot 51 percent compared to Temple’s 37 percent shooting and 14 assists on 31 field goals.
Six of Temple’s last nine games in American Athletic Conference play had been decided by two possessions or fewer, and the Owls had gone 5-1 in those games. Playing to win its third-straight overtime game, Temple was well within reach of a victory, even without Mashburn, who came into the night averaging 22.1 points per game, second nationally only to Villanova's Eric Dixon.
The Owls had chances to win at the end of regulation and at the conclusion of the first overtime but came up empty both times. Stanford kept the ball for the entirety of the last possession of regulation and tried launching a right elbow jumper from three-point range over Reynolds, but Reynolds got part of the ball – and maybe part of Stanford’s right hand – and the ball fell well short of the rim. And coming out of a timeout with 1.6 seconds left in the first overtime, Settle stepped out of bounds as he launched a corner three.
From there, USF left Temple behind and outscored the Owls 13-4 in the second overtime. The Bulls opened it up with a 7-0 run on a three from Jayden Reid and two dunks from Knox. Knox’s second dunk came when Temple, with a 4-on-1 advantage around the basket, allowed an offensive rebound to Brown, who fed Knox for the easy bucket.
The Owls, meanwhile, shot just 1-for-10 in the second overtime.
While Stanford, Settle, Gray and Tobiason all scored in double figures and combined for 75 of Temple’s 91 points, the rest of the team combined to shoot just 5-for-27. Quante Berry and Shane Dezonie struggled through a collective 1-of-21 shooting spell. Dezonie was back in the lineup Thursday and started after missing last Saturday’s overtime win over ECU with an injury.
Mashburn, according to a Temple spokesperson, is considered day-to-day heading into Sunday’s road game at No. 17 Memphis.
Putbacks: Former Temple guard Quincy Ademokoya, a 3-star recruit in Temple's 2020 recruiting class, scored 11 points and grabbed five rebounds for USF Thursday night. After spending his first two college seasons with the Owls, he spent the next two at Kennesaw State before reuniting with his former head coach prior to this season.