Wichita St. @ Temple preview

Last Meeting ( Mar 15, 2019 ) Wichita St. 80, Temple 74

Wichita State will look to remain the American Athletic Conference’s lone unbeaten team Wednesday when the 16th-ranked Shockers put their nine-game win streak on the line against Temple. It took two overtime periods for the Shockers to earn their eighth straight true road victory – the second-longest streak in the nation behind Gonzaga’s 13 – as they escaped with an 89-86 win over Connecticut on Sunday.

It wasn’t the prettiest of victories for Wichita State Sunday as it let a nine-point lead with 1:05 remaining in regulation slip away while committing a season-high 21 turnovers – 19 in regulation but only two during the pair of overtime periods. The Shockers were led by their lone senior, center Jaime Echenique, who posted team-highs of 19 points and eight rebounds against the Huskies and leads the team with 13 blocks despite averaging the seventh-most minutes (19.8) and missing the first four games of the season with a fractured hand. The new year has not been kind to Temple as it was dealt a 65-51 defeat to Tulane Saturday – its third consecutive loss to open 2020 – while suffering through its second-worst shooting performance of the season (31.5 percent) and tying a season-low with 17 made field goals. “We’re playing like a finesse team on the offensive side where we’re taking a lot of 3’s, too many,” Owls coach Aaron McKie told reporters after his team’s 5-for-24 performance from downtown Saturday. “I want them to take the ones that are there but we have a team that should be attacking the paint, we should be getting to the free throw line.”

TIME: 9 p.m. ET. TV: ESPNU

ABOUT WICHITA STATE (15-1, 3-0 AAC): Sophomore Dexter Dennis broke out of his scoring slump with 16 points against the Huskies – his first double-digit effort since Nov. 9 against Texas Southern – as the guard entered Sunday averaging four points per game on 16.1 percent shooting (10-of-62) over his previous nine contests. Leading scorer Erik Stevenson (14.1 points per game) hit a pair of triples on his way to 16 points Sunday and became the first Shockers player this season to foul out of a game when he picked up his fifth violation during the first overtime. Guard Jamarius Burton leads the team with 3.8 assists per game and has registered eight of his 14 steals in his last four games.

ABOUT TEMPLE (9-6, 1-3): Leading scorer Quinton Rose (14.4 points per game) was the only Owls player to hit double-figures Saturday as the senior posted 12 points while only attempting two free throws – his fewest in nine games. Junior guard Nate Pierre-Louis is pulling down a team-high 8.8 rebounds per game - 7.07 on the defensive end (second-best in the AAC) - while the Owls rank 12th nationally entering Tuesday with 29.47 defensive boards per game. Senior guard Alani Moore II leads the team with 34 made triples on 37.4 percent accuracy but was 0-for-4 from 3-point range Sunday and is 4-for-16 from downtown during conference play.

BUZZER BEATERS

1. Wichita State has held 13-of-16 opponents under 40-percent shooting and sits 28th nationally with a field-goal percentage defense of 38.2.

2. The Owls own the top 3-point field-goal defense in the conference (28.9 percent).

3. Dennis posted 19 points and 12 rebounds as the Shockers handed the Owls an 80-74 setback during the most recent meeting between the programs in the quarterfinal of the 2019 AAC Championship.

PREDICTION: Wichita State 78, Temple 69