The Temple Owls came back in the late minutes to top the Memphis Tigers, 80-75 in the American Athletic Conference Tournament. The game took place at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut.
This win gave Temple's coach, Fran Dunphy, his 500th career win. He got his team pumped during the game to help them win the game over an always tough Memphis squad.
Will Cummings dropped 21 points and added six assists in the Owl victory. He gave a key assist to Obi Enechionyia who scored and was fouled. Enechionyia dropped in the free throw to make it a 74-71 in favor of the Owls with just a short amount of time left. Kedren Johnson hit a deep three point jumper for Memphis to make it a three point game with seven seconds left, but Cummings finished with two free throws to put the nail in the coffin.
Cummings had 10 of his 21 points come from the free throw line. Jesse Morgan chipped in 13 points and Quenton DeCosey had 14 points.
Temple shot 46 percent from the field and 42 percent from the three point line. They also dominated, hitting 22-for-29 from the charity line.
As for the Tigers, Burrell scored 16 points and led the team with that. Shaq Goodwin scored 15, Johnson had 14, Calvin Godfrey dropped 13 and Markel Crawford scored 12. It was a high scoring effort, but Memphis just could not come out on top.
Memphis shot 43 percent from the field and 57 percent from the free throw line. However, the shot just 25 percent from downtown, which is 5-for-20. They also committed 23 fouls, most coming in the last few seconds.
Temple will take on the SMU Mustangs, who are the top ranked team in the American Athletic Conference Tournament.