After folding down the stretch three days prior, Temple made enough smart plays and clutch free throws inside the game’s closing minutes to grab a 73-70 win at Rice Saturday afternoon.
Jamal Mashburn Jr. scored a game-high 24 points and hit two free throws with 1.5 seconds left to ice the game, and the Owls got important supporting-cast performances from reserve guard Shane Dezonie and freshman forward Babatunde Durodola.
Dezonie shot just 1 of 6 from the field but went 7-for-10 from the line, including 6-for-8 in the second half. All six of Dezonie’s makes from the line came inside the game’s last 1 minute, 12 seconds, and he grabbed a career-high 15 rebounds as well, including five on the offensive glass.
Durodola, a 6-foot-8, 220-pound freshman forward who joined the program in late August after reclassifying from the 2025 to the 2024 class, scored 11 points on 4 of 8 shooting and swiped three offensive rebounds on the afternoon. After Rice (11-6, 2-2 American Athletic Conference) clawed back from a nine-point second-half deficit and had taken its second lead of the half, Durodola put back a Dezonie miss to put Temple ahead for good at 62-61 with 2:47 remaining.
The Owls improved to 10-6 overall and 2-1 in conference play ahead of Thursday’s home game against No. 19 Memphis, which scratched out a 74-70 home win Saturday over the same East Carolina team that erased a 10-point second-half deficit to beat Temple Wednesday.
Temple led by four at 35-31 at halftime with the help of 13 first-half points from Mashburn. The Owls held Rice to 33% shooting (12 of 36) in the first 20 minutes, but nine offensive rebounds helped Rice stay in the game with 14 second-chance points. Matteo Picarelli scored six first-half points with a three pointer and three free throws, and freshman forward Dillon Battie played six first-half minutes, his first game action since Temple’s Dec. 21 loss to Rhode Island.
The Owls led the Rice Owls by as many as 11 points in the first half at 27-16 before Rice went on an 11-0 run, capped by a Jimmy Oladokun Jr. layup, that tied the game at 27 before Mashburn stopped the run with a three at the 2:16 mark. Temple held Rice guard Trae Broadnax, the Owls’ leading scorer, to just two first-half points, which came at the foul line, on 0-for-6 shooting. And while Temple surrendered nine offensive boards to Rice, the Owls did score 12 points off six Rice turnovers.
Temple played Saturday without point guard Lynn Greer III, who did not make the trip to Houston after Wednesday’s game at ECU after being suspended indefinitely from the team.
Point guard Quante Berry scored 11 points and contributed four rebounds in the win. While the Owls went without a field goal over the last 2:47 of the game after Durodola’s go-ahead layup, he went 3-for-4 from the foul line inside the game’s final minute.
After getting outrebounded by 23-19 in the first half, including 9-3 on the offensive glass, Temple recovered and outrebounded Rice by 47-37. For Rice, Broadnax scored 11 second-half points to finish with13 – right around his average coming into the game – on 5 of 18 shooting. Broadnax, who started his career at Navy before two seasons at South Carolina Upstate, scored his 1,000th career point in the loss.
