Duke 73, Temple 78

I can’t say I am pleased with the outcome of this game. Duke gets handed their second loss of the season as Temple upsets them with a final score of 78-73. Full recap after the jump.

• I said earlier in today’s preview that the key to Temple winning the game was that they had to slow down Duke’s three-point shooting and that the Owls had play their best basketball on both ends of the ball. And guess what they did?…
• … they held Duke to only 14 three-point attempts (the Blue Devils usually attempt about 25 or 30 a game). Temple also, from what I presume, probably played their best basketball game of the year. If you’re a team like Temple, you will always have to play your best basketball in order to beat a team like Duke. So, it’s not like I have watched any of Temple’s games this year, but I just knew from this game that they most likely played their absolute best and were on top of it before tonight’s game.
• When the Duke players were coming onto the court for a little shooting around before the game, Seth Curry was leading the way, but everyone else was about five seconds behind him. Clearly not in sync there. Maybe their not-in-syncage (I just totally made that phrase up) minds of being way behind Curry caused them to lose tonight…
• I will bet on my life and everything I own that that had nothing to do with tonight’s loss. It was just a little thought that popped into my head.
• Anyway, you see the picture of Khalif Wyatt celebrating over the Temple win over Duke at the top of the post? He deserves to celebrate all he wants. He played phenomenal tonight and was a big role in the upset. Wyatt scored 22 points off of 8 for 12 shooting from the field (and 3 for 5 shooting from three-point range) and stole the ball five times. He was definitely the best player out on the court out of both teams tonight.
• This is the first time Temple has beaten Duke since January 25, 1996. Crazy.
• The best players out on the court for the Blue Devils tonight were definitely… hands down… Mason and Miles Plumlee. Mason muscled a double-double – 16 points and 13 rebounds. Miles looked spectacular as well. Miles is not a guy that you expect to score much, but he actually led all of the Dukies in points with 17 of them in just 19 minutes of on-court time. If the Plumlees struggled tonight, Duke would’ve lost by 15 or 20. That’s just an estimate, but I bet I would be pretty close.
• I had Duke winning with the line at -7.5 before the game started. Duke ended up losing with the line at -12.5. Yuck.
• Austin Rivers didn’t have his best game, for sure. 11 points on 3 for 11 shooting in 33 minutes of play. He also looked like he was afraid to make mistakes for some reason. I’m not exactly quite sure why, though…
• Time to start conference play. Yay. Duke’s next game is on the road against fellow ACC member Georgia Tech. Tip off is Saturday, January 7 at noon EST. The game will be televised on ESPNU.