Temple upsets No. 16 Wichita State as Shockers’ winning streak ends in ugly road loss
There’s something about North Broad Street that continues to elude Wichita State.
For the second time since joining the American Athletic Conference, the Shockers traveled to Philadelphia ranked 16th in the country and for the second time Temple handed WSU an upset loss, this time a stunning 65-53 defeat on Wednesday at the Liacouras Center.
Temple (10-6, 2-3 AAC) snapped its three-game losing streak while also ending the nation’s second-longest road winning streak of eight games, established by WSU. The Shockers (15-2, 3-1 AAC) also saw their nine-game winning streak end as they lost their first conference game.
“We were outplayed and outcoached,” WSU coach Gregg Marshall said. “(Temple) had a wonderful game plan. They deserved to win, for sure. This was not our best and you have to give them credit. I hope this game doesn’t define our season. We’ve been playing some really good basketball and tonight, for whatever reason, we didn’t. We looked mentally and physically tired and I’ll have to figure out why that is.”
WSU’s ice-cold shooting numbers told the story of Wednesday’s game: 30.2% from the field, WSU’s lowest mark since shooting 24.2% in its 69-63 win over Texas Southern on Nov. 9. The Shockers also tied their season-low of three three-pointers with their worst accuracy from distance at 14.3%.
Senior center Jaime Echenique finished with a career-high 20 points on 8 of 13 shooting and a career-high 13 rebounds. Jamarius Burton added 16 points on 6 of 14 shooting, but the problem was that the rest of the Shockers shot just 13.9% (5 of 36).
“We couldn’t get anything going and we let our missed shots dictate our defense,” Burton said. “Our defense is usually at a all-time high where people are communicating and flying around everywhere. Tonight it just wasn’t like that.
“Part of it was on the offensive end, but good teams don’t allow their offense to dictate how well they play defense and we did that tonight. We’ve got to get back to Wichita and watch film and learn from this.”
After leading by six at halftime, WSU was listless in the second half. The Shockers started the half with eight straight empty possessions, combusted and allowed Temple to score six points on a single possession.
It started when Dexter Dennis’ pass was picked off by Quinton Rose, then Erik Stevenson wrapped up Rose and was whistled for a Flagrant 1 foul. Rose made both free throws, then Monty Scott made a jumper. During Scott’s shot, WSU was called for a foul on the rebound, setting up Nate Pierre-Louis for another jumper.
In a single possession, WSU went from up 32-31 to down 37-32 with 15:54 remaining.
“We played with desperation,” said Temple senior Quinton Rose, who scored a team-high 19 points.
WSU battled back behind Echenique, who scored back-to-back baskets midway through the second half to trim Temple’s lead to 48-45 with 7:32 remaining. But that’s as close as the Shockers would come.
Temple responded with a run of its own, a 7-0 spurt that established a 55-45 lead with 4:26 remaining. Only then did WSU awaken from its slumber.
“We kept motivating each other that we could still make a run and still win the game,” Burton said. “It’s up to us to bounce back from those runs. We still had opportunities to win the ball game and we didn’t take advantage of them.”
Echenique scored two straight baskets, then WSU forced a turnover and Burton made a pair of free throws to trim Temple’s lead to 57-51 with 3:01 remaining. WSU had a possession to cut it even further, but Stevenson was whistled for traveling. WSU never came within six points after that.
It was the second straight strong game from Echenique, who finished with 19 points and eight rebounds in the double-overtime win at Connecticut.
“It’s good, but I don’t really care about my numbers,” Echenique said. “It’s about how many games we can win. I had 20 today, but we lost, so that doesn’t matter nothing to me.”
WSU was punished for its worst 15 minutes of basketball since November. The Shockers missed 14 of their first 16 shots in the second half and had scored just nine points in nearly the first 12 minutes.
“They do a really good job of getting those guys shots and we were well aware of that,” Temple coach Aaron McKie said. “We wanted to use our length and athleticism against those guys, make them put it on the floor and play in a crowd.”
Temple remains just the third team in the American that the Shockers have yet to beat on the road. Temple erased a double-digit deficit against the 2017-18 Shockers and ultimately won 81-79 in overtime on Feb. 1, 2018.
While it wasn’t a great first half from WSU, such a porous start to the second half could not have been predicted.
“Every game is an opportunity, a chance to learn,” Burton said. “Today we were on the opposite end. We lost. But it’s still an opportunity to learn from this and get better.”
Burton established WSU’s first meaningful lead of the game when he swished back-to-back three-pointers for a 6-0 spurt that put the Shockers up 12-7. That lead grew to 17-9 after Dennis drilled a three of his own and Sherfield swiped a pass and finished at the other end with 13:13 remaining.
Echenique made his first two shots of the game and finished with eight points and six rebounds in the first half with his best stretch coming midway through the half when he finished an offensive rebound putback, forced a turnover at the other end, then was fouled and made both free throws for 21-12 lead with 9:53 remaining.
But the Shockers never delivered the knockout blow in the first half. Temple rallied from nine down to within 22-20 with six minutes remaining. That’s when Burton stepped up to steady the Shockers with back-to-back jumpers.
Burton, who had 12 points in the first half, was a calming presence on the floor for WSU and helped the Shockers recover to take a 32-26 lead into halftime, despite shooting just 37.5% from the floor. But WSU led thanks to a 6-1 offensive rebounding advantage and forcing Temple into 10 turnovers.
“I didn’t honestly think they played very well in the first half either,” Marshall said. “Both teams were kind of sleepwalking. But obviously they turned it up in the second half and we just remained in our slumber.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 10:10 PM.
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