Instant Replay: St. Bonaventure 81, Temple 78

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BOX SCORE

The Temple Owls couldn't get out of their own way, and never seemed to get in St. Bonaventure's.

Despite a massive second-half effort from Khalif Wyatt, poor defense and a terrible disparity in three-point efficiency doomed the Owls in a 81-78 loss to St. Bonaventure on Saturday at the Liacouras Center.

The defeat snaps a 15-game Temple winning streak over St. Bonaventure, gives the Bonnies their first win over the Owls since Jan. 16, 2002 and their first win ever on the Owls' home floor.

Temple fell to 12-5 with the loss and 2-2 in A-10 play. St. Bonaventure, meanwhile, improved to 8-9 and won its first in-conference game of the season after starting 0-3.

Turning point

Leading by four, 40-36, at the half, the Bonnies opened the second on a 12-5 run to take their largest lead of the game at 53-41.

They led by 10 with less than eight minutes to play before a 15-6 Temple run cut the lead to just one, 69-68 with 2:56 to play.

But over the next 60 seconds, Bonnies guard Demetrius Conger hit a three, Wyatt fouled out on an offensive charge and Chris Johnson hit another three to put the Bonnies up seven, 75-68, with 1:56 to go.

Temple actually trailed by eight points with seven seconds to play, but a three by T.J. DiLeo and a buzzer-beating putback by Anthony Lee made the final score look closer than it was.

B.M.O.C.

Wyatt finished with a game-high 31 points on 10-for-13 shooting, scoring 19 in the second half, before fouling out.

Owls forward Jake O'Brien eclipsed his old season-high of 15 points with 16 in the first half on 6-for-8 shooting from the floor and 4-for-6 shooting from the line. But O'Brien played only seven minutes in the second, took just three shots and did not score.

Matthew Wright led the way for St. Bonaventure with 22 points on 8-for-11 shooting. He went a perfect 4-of-4 from three. Wright also tied his season-high of 13 points only 11 minutes into the first half, but went scoreless for the remainder of the frame. He opened the game a perfect 5-of-5 from the field and 3-of-3 from three.

Conger led the Bonnies in rebounding with nine and Chris Johnson handed out a team-high seven assists.

Inside the box score

St. Bonaventure shot a blistering 61 percent from three, making 11 of 18 attempts. Temple, on the other hand, tried a staggering 34 looks from three, making 12 (35 percent).

Both St. Bonaventure and Temple shot a high percentage from the field, going 27-for-55 (49 percent) and 28-for-61 (46 percent). Neither team defended well.

St. Bonaventure A.N.

This is St. Bonaventure's first season since 2008 without power forward Andrew Nicholson. Nicholson, the 2012 Atlantic 10 player of the year, left Olean, NY second on the program's all-time list in points (2,103), field-goal percentage (57.5) and blocked shots (244), trailing only Bob Lanier in the first two categories.

Nicholson was selected 19th overall by the Orlando Magic in the 2012 NBA Draft and is averaging 7.7 points and 3.3 rebounds in 15 minutes per game.

Up next

St. Bonaventure will remain in Philadelphia and tip off with Saint Joseph's inside Hagan Arena Wednesday, Jan. 23, at 7 p.m.

Also on Wednesday night, Temple hosts Penn at the Liacouras Center at 7 p.m., before going on the road to face No. 13 Butler next Saturday.

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