Indiana eliminates Wyatt and Temple, 58-52

DAYTON, Ohio - Temple's latest setback in the NCAA tournament will sting for a while. This was a game the Owls had every opportunity to win.

Temple guard Khalif Wyatt had one of the tournament's best individual performances Sunday, scoring 31 points for the second consecutive game. And with the Owls leading top-seeded Indiana, Temple was 2 minutes, 12 seconds away from one of the biggest upsets in school history.

But the Hoosiers scored the game's final 10 points en route to a 58-52 victory over the ninth-seeded Owls in a third-round game at the University of Dayton Arena.

The loss denied Temple (24-10) its first Sweet 16 appearance since 2001 and its eighth overall. Indiana (29-6) will face Syracuse on Thursday in an East Regional semifinal at the Verizon Center in Washington.

The Owls are heading home mainly because Wyatt was their only effective player.

"We didn't make shots," forward Jake O'Brien said. "I don't think they keyed in on Khalif like many teams do. And the game comes down to making shots, and we didn't."

Temple swingman Scootie Randall (0 for 12 shooting, three points), point guard Will Cummings (0 for 5) and O'Brien (0 for 4) went a combined 0 for 21 in the six-point setback. Cummings and O'Brien did not score.

"Everyone has their feeling of what they could have done better," O'Brien said. "It's just tough knowing that if you could have done more, the thing might have led to a couple of points, a stop that ultimately would have won the game for you."

When Indiana's Victor Oladipo (16 points) finally put the clamps on Wyatt, the Owls went the final four minutes without a field goal.

The Hoosiers (29-6) took their first lead of the second half when Oladipo's foul shot made it a 53-52 game with 1:19 left. His uncontested three-pointer with 15 seconds left gave the Hoosiers a 56-52 cushion.

But early on, it was the Wyatt show.

Thanks in large part to his 20 first-half points, the Owls led, 29-26, at intermission.

At one point, the Norristown native went on a personal 6-0 run while scoring 13 consecutive points for Temple. His back-to-back baskets gave the Owls a 41-35 lead with 9:59 left. It was their largest lead of the game.

"I was just being aggressive," Wyatt said. "My teammates kept coming to me and I was just being aggressive."

But it all changed when Oladipo, the Big Ten defensive player of the year, locked Wyatt up in the final six minutes. Wyatt missed his only two shots - both three-pointers - during that stretch.

"He's one of the toughest matchups I've ever had this year," Oladipo said. "He did a phenomenal job of scoring the basketball. So I was just trying to limit his touches and make him not touch it.

"I think I did a pretty good job of that in the second half."

That forced Wyatt's teammates to play four-on-four, and they couldn't convert.

A crucial moment came with Temple up, 52-50, with 2:18 remaining. Wyatt passed the ball to Anthony Lee under the basket, but the sophomore center's shot was blocked by Christian Watford. Indiana center Cody Zeller was fouled and made a pair of foul shots to knot the score at 52 with 1:51 to play.

That's when Oladipo took over.