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Where would the Temple Owls be without Khalif Wyatt?

After Temple found itself trailing by as much as nine early in the second, Wyatt scored 21 of his game-high 26 points after the half to rally the heavily-favored Owls past Penn on Wednesday night, 76-69.

The all-too-narrow Temple win improved the Owls to 13-5 on the season and 2-0 against the Big 5.

Penn, meanwhile, despite its best effort of the season, dropped to 3-15 and finished its Big 5 slate a winless 0-4.

Turning point
A 19.5-point underdog, Penn took a 33-31 lead into the break and outscored Temple 12-5 in the first 4:19 of the second half to take its largest lead of the game, by nine, 45-36.

The Owls managed to climb back and tie the game, 52-52, with 9:53 to play on one of Wyatt's four second half threes.

But Wyatt couldn't do it all by himself, and rather than one of the Owls you might expect -- Scootie Randall or Anthony Lee, for example -- it was T.J. DiLeo who hit two threes with 8:52 and 7:16 remaining to keep Temple in the game when Penn looked like it might once again pull away.

Following DiLeo's second three, which tied the game 61-61, Temple outscored Penn 15-7 the rest of the way.

B.M.O.C.
Wyatt once again led Temple with 26 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the floor and 4-for-6 shooting from three. Its the eighth time Wyatt has led a game in scoring this season and the seventh time he's gone for 20 more. He added five assists to his stat line.

Temple bigs Jake O'Brien and Lee came next with 16 points and 14 points each. O'Brien started in place of the injured Rahlir Hollis-Jefferson (knee) and scored 10 points in the first on 4-for-5 shooting. Lee, meanwhile, grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.

For Penn, Miles Cartwright and Darien Nelson-Henry led the Quakers with 21 and 17 points each on a combined 13-for-24 shooting. The rest of the Quakers went just 11 of 29 from the floor.

Rollouts
As part of a long-standing Big 5 tradition, the Temple student section came prepared with rollouts aim at taunting Penn. They appear below in the order they were rolled out.

1. Mathletes not athletes
2. Quakers Oats > Quaker hoops
3. 3-14: That's not Pi, that's your record.
4: Thank you, Al Shrier
5. More suspensions than wins
6. Te'o's girlfriend is more realistic than your tourney hopes.

Those signs became progressively less timely and humorous as Temple continued to find itself trailing on the scoreboard.

New Rhules
New Temple football coach Matt Rhule addressed the Liacouras Center crowd during the first half, attempting to work the crowd into a frenzy. He ultimately proved successful, delivering the following promise before walking off the floor: "Before I die, we will bring a trophy to this campus."

How's that for a promise?

Next Up
Penn returns to Ivy League play on Feb. 1 when it hosts Columbia at the Palestra.

Temple, meanwhile, heads to Hinkle Fieldhouse for a meeting with No. 9 Butler this coming Saturday.