Dingle's shooting, defense spark Temple past UConn, 63-58

Temple was starting to mount a comeback Thursday night against UConn at the Liacouras Center, trying to trim the deficit to single digits, when Daniel Dingle threw the ball away and turned it over in transition.

Moments later, the Huskies were up by 12 again with less than six minutes to play, and things didn’t look so good for the Owls.

Then Dingle, a redshirt junior forward who has dealt with his share of adversity (a torn meniscus injury here, a critical late-game mistake there), responded with his best stretch of basketball this season. In a span of less than two minutes, he hit three three-pointers and keyed a run that saw Temple score 21 of the game’s final 25 points and come away with a 63-58 win over UConn that improved the Owls to 15-8 overall and 9-3 in the American Athletic Conference - atop the league standings.

Temple has now won four in a row and nine of its last 11 games, a stretch that started with the Owls beating the Huskies by a bucket on the road back on Jan. 5. UConn center Amida Brimah didn’t play that day due to a broken finger on his right hand. He returned to the lineup almost two weeks ago and started Thursday night, but the 7-foot junior, who’s more of a shot blocker than a scorer, wasn’t much of a factor, managing just three points and a block in 19 minutes. The game might have taken a different turn had he not lost the ball on his way up for an uncontested dunk that would have quelled things a bit as Temple started to make its run.

Instead, UConn came up empty on that possession, and Dingle hit consecutive threes to cut the deficit to two before forcing a shot-clock violation at the other end of the floor with a little more than three minutes to go. Then Quenton DeCosey, who scored a game-high 23 points, tied the game and later put the Owls ahead for good on a three-point play while getting hacked by Rodney Purvis on an acrobatic shot that dropped through the hoop.

“I don’t know how that went in,” DeCosey said. “I’m just thankful that it went in.”

From there, UConn (17-7, 7-4) pretty much self destructed courtesy of turnovers from Daniel Hamilton and Purvis, and Temple held on for a win that keeps the Owls - for now - in the NCAA Tournament at-large bid conversation. For what it’s worth, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi currently has the Owls as a projected 12th seed in the South region in his latest bracketology report.

There were other catalysts for Temple Thursday night. Senior forward Jaylen Bond didn’t shoot it well (4 of 14 from the floor), but he grabbed 13 rebounds, including six on the offensive end, and was a big reason why the Owls outscored UConn on second-chance points by 17-7. And Devin Coleman added 11 points, including a three-pointer in the late-game run, off the bench.

But it all started with Dingle, who finished with a career-high 15 points on 5 of 11 shooting and 4 of 5 from three-point range.

“Actually, I was going to shoot regardless,” Dingle said to a room full of laughter when he was asked if his stretch of three consecutive three-pointers was fueled by confidence. “I was trying to help us get back in the game. My confidence was high. After practice, me and Quenton, we get up shots every day. So I put in the work and I just got lucky tonight.”

Dingle’s solid performances have had little to do with luck and a lot more to do with resiliency. His three double-digit scoring efforts have come in a critical win on the road at Cincinnati and against then-No. 8 SMU at home, both 14-point outings. He also had to bounce back from committing a late-game foul that led to the game-winning free throws in Temple’s 67-65 loss at Memphis Jan. 13.

“I’m just so happy for Dan Dingle,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “He shot those last three (three pointers) like no problem, they’re going down. Every one of them did, and it was just awesome for him and us.”

Temple ended the first half on a 9-2 run over the last 1:19 to take a 31-29 lead. Dingle got fouled and scored on a layup but couldn’t hit the free throw to complete the three-point play, but the Owls grabbed the rebound and DeCosey calmly hit a fadeaway jumper at the buzzer to give Temple a 31-29 lead at halftime. DeCosey had 14 points in the first half but couldn’t get much going in the second half until he got nine points in the last 1 minute, 49 seconds of the game.

Now comes a Valentine’s Day home game against USF Sunday. The Bulls are 5-20 overall and 2-10 in league play, so the term trap game should come up, oh, about 200 times between now and then with Big 5 foe Villanova, the nation’s newly-minted No. 1 team, coming to the Liacouras Center next Wednesday.

Dunphy and his players weren’t really taking the bait when they were asked to talk about next week’s matchup with the Wildcats.

“On campus, every time I’m walking around, (the students) are like, ‘Beat Villanova. Beat Villanova.’ But we’re worried about USF. We’re just worried about that game, and then after we go out there, play our best and get the win, then we’ll focus on Villanova. But right now, we’re focused on February 14.”