"This is No. 1," said fifth-year guard Ramone Moore, who ranked this atop his best moments as an Owl. "Like I said, it hasn't hit me yet.
"Rahlir [Hollis-Jefferson] and Khalif [Wyatt] came through for us tonight, man. Whenever you beat Duke, it's just something big."
And on this night, no one was bigger than Wyatt.
The junior guard made 3 of 5 three-pointers en route to finishing with a game-high 22 points. Wyatt also finished with a game-high five steals, three assists, and four rebounds. Perhaps his biggest moments were his back-to-back three-pointers that gave the Owls a 66-57 cushion with four minutes remaining.
"He's got huge courage," Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. "He just has no fear. I think that's what you need in a game like this.
"He made those threes and gave us a little bit of space, and he can do that."
So what did Wyatt think of his performance?
"This is probably my biggest performance, right behind beating Chester High," the Norristown High graduate joked about beating Hollis-Jefferson's former Chester squad back in high school. "Nah, this is probably the biggest win, biggest performance, biggest win, biggest stage I had in my career."
Despite giving up four to five inches in the post, Hollis-Jefferson, a 6-foot-6 junior forward, finished with a season-high 17 points, 6 rebounds, and a career-best-tying 4 assists.
"I just used my speed, because I knew I was quicker than them," he said of facing Duke's Ryan Kelly (6-11), Mason Plumlee (6-10), and Miles Plumlee (6-10). "I just used that to my advantage."
Freshman forward Lee (11 points), Moore (11), and sophomore reserve guard Aaron Brown (11) were the Owls' other double-digit scorers.
