After defeating them in a close contest last time they played, USF got the better of Temple this time around in a game to see who would take second place in the American Athletic Conference in a 76-62 win. Feyonda Fitzgerald lead the team in points, rebounds and assists with 16, seven, and seven, but three other players (Tanaya Atkinson, Donnaizha Fountain, and Alliya Butts) also scored in double digits. USF had the advantage in every stat, aside from steals where they both tied at five apiece for the team. They biggest problem for Temple, though, is the fact that they only got two points off the bench. That means the starters accumulated for 60 of their 62 points which won’t work to win games for most teams. Temple has one more game left for senior night against UCF until tournament play begins, so they will have a chance to build some momentum back for the tournament when it starts.
The first quarter was pretty back and forth for scoring. Neither team went on a big run and the 21-18 score at the end of the quarter pretty much shows how even it was.
USF began to assert their dominance and break away in the second quarter with a 8-0 run for the last three minutes of the quarter to give themselves a 41-31 lead. At halftime, both Atkinson and Fitzgerald lead Temple with 11 points apiece, while not player on USF had reached double digits yet. They were, however, better in every stat aside from steals at that point, which helped give them their 10 point lead in the first place.
Temple started to fight back in the beginning of the 3rd quarter, dropping the lead all the way back down to three, but USF took off again and was able to give themselves another 12 point lead by the time the quarter had ended.
The fourth quarter was USF still dominating as Temple was never able to even get back within single digits and USF had built a 16 point lead the Temple could not overcome by the end of the game.
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