As we noted in the game preview, the San Diego St. Aztecs and Temple Owls matched up very well with each other, and a lot of our predictions turned out to be right.
San Diego State shooting defense held down Temple's shooting. San Diego State held Temple to 38% shooting from the field and only three points in the final overtime period, and 36.5% from two point land. Lavoy Allen, 5 for 16 shooting, Rahlir Jefferson 2 for 8 shooting, Juan Fernandez 5 for 16 shooting. If not for the Owls knocking down six threes (four from Fernandez), the Aztecs would've probably won this outright in regulation.
The Aztecs had trouble shooting twos. Usually a great two point field goal offense, SDSU could get nothing in this one. D.J. Gay shot only 2 for 9, Kawhi Leonard 5 for 13. Billy White and Malcolm Thomas got theirs inside, but the struggles for Gay and Leonard cancelled out the struggles for Allen, Jefferson and Fernandez.
The Aztecs nailed their threes. Although their inside game betrayed them, the outside saved them against Temple's porous three point defense, particularly Chase Tapley. He nailed four of San Diego State's threes and kept the team from falling into too huge an offensive rut.
Take a look at the Four Factors below and you'll see that SDSU won almost every critical category at the end.
So for those Aztecs fans a little nervous about how close this one is, don't sweat it. It was a tough matchup and you're still playing. It's better than being Pitt.