SAN ANTONIO – UTSA men’s basketball (4-16, 0-8 AMER) battled Temple (13-7, 5-2 AMER) in a nailbiter on Saturday afternoon at the Convocation Center. UTSA edged out a two-point halftime advantage, but a Temple scoring run to open the second half forced the Roadrunners to play from behind throughout the final 20 minutes. Though UTSA brought the deficit to a single point with 8:20 to go and trimmed it to a single possession twice more, the Owls held off the UTSA rally for the 70-64 win.
UTSA came out strong early in the opening period, putting the first bucket on the board with a Brent Moss pull-up jumper, launching into a 7-2 start and hitting five of the first six field goals. Though Temple rallied to tie the game at 13-all on a Masiah Gilyard three, Austin Nunez, Baboucarr Njie and Moss fired off a 10-0 scoring drive to earn a 23-13 lead with 11:12 on the clock, holding the Owls without a score for nearly five minutes.
But once the Owls got moving again on an Aiden Tobiason layup, Temple began chipping into UTSA’s lead, drawing the game to three points on a Derrian Ford and-one opportunity with 6:37 to go.
Jamir Simpson traded scores with the Owls to halt the scoring drought and Njie grabbed his own board with the putback to make it 29-24 with 2:57 on the clock – the lead growing back to 31-24 as Moss recovered a long offensive rebound with the pull-up for the second-chance score.
Coming down the stretch, Ford scored five of Temple’s final eight points to surge right before the half, as Tobiason logged an and-one layup in the closing seconds to make it 33-31 in UTSA’s favor. There was :03 on the clock, but Temple opted to foul in interrupting the Roadrunner opportunity, as Njie’s final shot at the top of the key missed the mark.
Coming out of the break, the Owls built up a 14-3 run in the first eight minutes, as UTSA opened the second half 1-for-12 from the field after shooting 45.5 percent in the opening stanza.
Njie sparked the Roadrunners with back-to-back layups in a 22-second span after Dorian Hayes snatched a steal and pushed the ball ahead for Njie’s bucket with a free throw finish. Simpson stepped in on back-to-back scores and Nunez’ step-back triple cut the deficit to three – swiping the ball from Jordan Mason, recovering and driving the lane before dishing off to Moss for a layup to make it 51-50 with 8:20 to go.
Despite the 14-3 UTSA run that saw the Owls only get three shots in a five-minute stretch with three costly Temple turnovers, Mason evaded Roadrunner pressure with a step-back three that restarted the Temple offense. A Nunez jumper and Njie free throws made it a two-point game twice over the next two minutes, while Njie chipped in a pair of key blocks, but the Owls kept finding an answer to keep their edge. Temple made six of its final eight free throws to hold off the Roadrunners to the 70-64 final.
Garnering a huge performance this afternoon after registering two blocks and two buckets in the first 2:09 of play, Njie finished with a career-high 25 points (on 10-for-18 shooting) and 10 rebounds for his second double-double, on top of five blocks – giving him 12 rejections this week and 19 in his past four games.
Hitting the offensive glass hard, Moss also logged a double-double of 12 points and 12 rebounds, along with three steals. Simpson logged his 18th double-figure scoring performance with 14 points and Nunez scored 13.
Overall, the Roadrunners shot 43.8 percent from the field and outrebounded the Owls 37-34.
Up Next
The Roadrunners return to the court at the Convo next Wednesday, hosting the lone meeting with UAB this season on Jan. 28 for Suits and Sneakers vs. Cancer. The Roadrunners then catch their first BYE of the conference season over the weekend.
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