Temple women use 31-7 quarter to post third straight victory, 70-51 over Wichita State

After losing four games in a five-game stretch of American Athletic Conference play, the Temple women’s basketball team has flipped a switch the last two weeks and won three straight — all by double digits.

That dominance was on full display against Wichita State on Wednesday, especially in the third quarter of the Owls’ 70-51 win at the Liacouras Center. Temple (16-10, 10-5 AAC) scored 31 points in the frame, the most it’s scored in a third quarter all season (and second-most in any quarter), while holding the Shockers (9-19, 3-12) to just seven.

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“It was a good win for us,” Owls coach Diane Richardson said. “We’re pretty happy about it. We had to turn up our defense in the second half to get this thing done. Hats off to them.”

Two players finished in double figures, led by Tarriyonna Gary’s game-high 25 points on 9-for-15 shooting, including 7-of-10 shooting from three. Kaylah Turner added 15.

Princess Anderson led the Shockers with 20 points on 7-for-21 shooting.

“It [felt] good,” Gary said. “I knew I needed to shoot the ball because they were playing us in zone. I was just ready to shoot, and [my] shots [have] just been falling.”

One of the mantras for Temple has been its ability to turn its defense into offense by forcing turnovers and scoring in transition. That was key again.

Temple forced 18 turnovers and scored 23 points off of them.. In the locker room during halftime, the Owls discussed turning up their defense, and they did just that. Eight of those 18 turnovers came in the third quarter.

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“Our defense really turns us up,” Richardson said. “I think the extra effort in our defense really got us amped up. That carried on into our offense, and then we were on a roll. When they see the ball go in the basket and we get turnovers, that really fires them up.”

Temple struggled with rebounding at the start of conference play. After losing to South Florida on Feb. 8, Richardson said her team needed to improve its rebounding if it wanted to have success.

In the three games since, the Owls have outrebounded their opponents, 146-109, including a 44-36 advantage vs. the Shockers on Wednesday. Eleven of Temple’s 44 rebounds were on the offensive end, and the Owls scored 13 second-chance points.

“We’ve been concentrating on [rebounding],” Richardson said. “Those losses that we experienced had a lot to do with the lack of rebounding. Our staff has put in a lot of work on rebounding and boxing out every day in practice to pair that with our defense. It looked good for use today.”

The Owls have a road matchup with Memphis (7-18, 5-9) on Tuesday (8 p.m., ESPN+).