SMU Rallies To Beat Temple
UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas — Ryan Manuel doesn’t shoot enough to suit SMU coach Larry Brown. In fact, the senior guard was just 1 of 5 from 3-point range going into Thursday night’s American Athletic Conference showdown with Temple.
But Manuel found his inner gunner and nailed two pressure 3-pointers down the stretch to seal No. 21 SMU’s 67-58 comeback win over Temple.
Manuel hit a 3-pointer with 3:38 left to tie the score, then buried another one from long range for a seven-point SMU lead with 1:22 to play. Both shots sent the Moody Coliseum crowd into a frenzy.
“In practice, Coach Brown gives me the green light, so he tells me to shoot it every time,” Manuel said. “If I don’t shoot, he gets mad, so that’s going through the back of my head. So I just raised up and shot two 3’s and they went in. I guess it was some Moody Magic, too.”
Manuel also played a key defensive role in containing Temple guard Will Cummings in the second half. But it was his unlikely 3-point shooting that did the most damage.
“I thought Manuel’s two 3s were critical,” Temple coach Fran
Dunphy said. “They were crushers for us.”
SMU (22-5, 13-2 AAC) trailed by eight at halftime, but point guard Nic Moore scored 13 of his game-high 18 points in the second half to lead the comeback.
Moore had been guarding Cummings in the first half. While Cummings scored just four points in the half, he was extremely active with seven assists and four steals.
In the second half, Brown put Manuel, SMU’s best on-ball defender, on Cummings. He finished with 14 points and seven steals but did not have an assist in the second half.
The adjustment also allowed Moore to focus on his offensive game. Moore committed four turnovers and had one assist at halftime but led the SMU comeback with three assists, two steals and just two turnovers in the second half.
Coming off a highly charged win over reigning national champion Connecticut, SMU looked flat in the first of half against Temple in a game that had an early start of 6 p.m. Dallas time.
“Our energy stunk. We didn’t match their energy and they had a kid that just dominated the game,” Brown said. “I haven’t seen many guys play a half like Cummings played.”
Temple (19-8, 10-4) appeared on its way to an eighth consecutive win, taking a 39-29 lead with 15 minutes left.
SMU made its charge when Cummings left the game temporarily after getting bumped in a scramble for a loose ball.
“That certainly didn’t help us,” Dunphy said. “I thought he might have been banged up, so we took him out of the game.”
Fueled by three consecutive Temple turnovers, SMU went on a 7-0 run to pull within three points of the lead. SMU guard Sterling Brown scored a layup with 12:34 left to cut Temple’s lead to 39-36.
A Moore 3-pointer gave SMU a 46-43 lead with 8:30 remaining, setting up Manuel’s late dramatics.
SMU, just 2 of 9 at the free throw line in the first half, made its last nine foul shots to secure the win.
