Temple Upsets Duke

On Wednesday night, Fran Dunphy and the Temple Owls arrived at the Wells Fargo Center via the Broad Street line subway.  Meanwhile, Coach K and the Duke Blue Devils arrived in nice luxurious buses.  Simply put, the matchup had upset written all over it well before the game even began.

In the first half Temple did a great job of getting out into the open floor and speeding up the tempo.  They were able to overcome some early turnovers and going into the half led 35-33.

In the second half, Temple jumped out to a quick 6 point lead and really never looked back.  Temple was able to maintain their lead by getting great dribble penetration and then kicking the ball out to their shooters who knocked down some big shots.  Ramon Moore went 1-2 from beyond the arc while Khalif Wyatt went 3-5 from long distance.  Defensively, Temple was undersized going up against Mason and Miles Plumlee.  But they did an outstanding job of double teaming the Plumlee brothers and keeping them in check.  

For me Juan Fernandez was one of the key players of the game.  Although he only had 4 points, he stayed calm and had some amazing passes late in the game to set his teammates up with some key easy baskets.  Overall Dunphy did a great job of getting his guys to play hard and keep their composure even when it looked like Duke was closing in.  

In the end Temple won by a final of 78-73, pulling off the improbable upset over Duke.  I was on the edge of my seat for the entire game.  You just had this sense that eventually Duke was going to make a run, but it just never happened.  Temple's stingy defense was able to stave off  the Blue Devils and Duke never even took the lead in the second half.

It was a very impressive win for Temple, and a very big win for the city of Philadelphia.