FINAL: IU 58, Temple 52

DAYTON, Ohio-It wasn’t pretty, and it nearly didn’t even happen, but for at least another few days, the No. 1 seeded IU men’s basketball team is still dancing.

After scoring just 26 points at halftime and going into the locker room behind three, the Hoosiers surmounted a battle of attrition to take the third round victory against No. 9 seed Temple 58-52.

The Hoosiers scored 32 in the second half while starting off slow, and as Temple’s Khalif Wyatt somewhat cooled off from his first half 20-point tear, IU did what it needed to do to win despite Wyatt’s effort.

In the first half, Wyatt scored 20 of Temple’s 29 points, once digging the Owls out of a 20-11 deficit all on his own.

Junior guard Victor Oladipo guarded Wyatt for much of the half, as the pair traded buckets early, scoring their respective teams’ first four points.

Other than Wyatt, the Owls shot just 4-of-20 from the field, including a dismal 0-of-6 line from beyond the arc. The Owls continued to put up bricks from 3-point land, but their seven offensive rebounds kept them in the game as they took eight more shots than IU in the first half.

Sophomore forward Cody Zeller and Oladipo each had six early points, and after freshman forward Jeremy Hollowell hit a 3-pointer and junior forward Will Sheehey scored three-straight points, the Hoosiers held a nine-point lead, 18-9, with 11:08 left in the half.

It wasn’t quite the fast start the Hoosiers had amassed against James Madison Friday, but it appeared a comfortable lead.

But Wyatt outscored the Hoosiers 13-4 during a 6:44 stretch during the latter end of the half, and IU shot just 2-of-11 during the last 10 minutes of the first half.

Wyatt’s teammates scored the final five points in the half, grabbing the team’s first lead of the game off a dunk by Anthony Lee with 2:39 remaining, and they held onto it for the remainder of the half, nearly doubling it in the final seconds as Wyatt missed a last-second 3-pointer as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

The Hoosiers shot 9-of-18 in the second half, but they started just 1-of-6 while Wyatt and Temple struggled to put up shots. It appeared as though IU Coach Tom Crean had figured out a way to contain Wyatt, but the Hoosiers couldn’t take advantage.

Midway though the second half, after the Hoosiers went on a quick 6-2 run, IU pulled to within a single point at 35-34, but Wyatt would have none of that. He came alive once again, hitting two more buckets, and the Temple lead hit six.

Senior guard Jordan Hulls and Sheehey hit 3-pointers on back-to-back possessions that erased all of Wyatt’s work for a moment, tying the game for the first time since Temple took the lead late in the first half, but the Owls kept hitting just enough to stay ahead.

That was, until 3:09 left in regulation, when Wyatt hit the Owls’ last points for the afternoon, two free throws that boosted their lead to four.

Hulls hit another crucial jumper, despite a first half shoulder injury, and then the Hoosiers made their way to the line, hitting three free throws to retake the lead.

Oladipo iced the game with a 3-pointer from the top of the key with just 15 seconds left to seal IU’s second-straight trip to the Sweet Sixteen.

-Nathan Brown