Michael Phillis, Collegian

The Massachusetts men’s basketball team followed up its triumphant win over conference rival Rhode Island at the Mullins Center with an ugly loss to the Temple Owls on the road yesterday, falling 98-89 to a surging Owls squad.

UMass returns to the hardwood on Thursday for a 9 p.m. matchup with Fordham on the road.

“[Temple] just outplayed us,” UMass coach Travis Ford said. “I don’t think our guys took it lightly or weren’t ready. They outplayed us. We ran into a team that was running on all cylinders.

“They were the better team. We never really made it much of a game.”

Junior Gary Forbes led the Minutemen with a career-high 31 points on 10-of-23 shooting from the field and 3-of-6 from 3-point range. It is the most points a UMass player has scored in a game since senior captain Rashaun Freeman tallied 31 on Feb. 28 against Saint Bonaventure in 2004.

Forbes went 8-for-8 from the free-throw line and over his last 11 games he has shot 50-of-66 from the charity stripe, good for 76 percent. In his first 13 games, Forbes hit 54 percent. The 31-point, 14-rebound performance was Forbes’ second double-double of the season. He out-rebounded the Richmond Spiders, 16-13, on Feb. 3 in a UMass win at the Mullins Center.

Forbes’ prolific scoring was no consolation for the Minutemen, however, as they dropped to 17-7 and suffered their third loss in the conference.

“You know it is a marathon,” Ford said. “The Rhode Island game was just one game and this is just one game. But you know, I told our team there is still a long season left. The road is tough and hopefully we respond from this. I don’t think we overlooked Temple. We can’t make any excuses. They just outplayed us.”

The Owls scored 98 points, the most the Minutemen have let up all season, and got 30 from Dionte Christmas, who lit up UMass with an efficient 10-for-16 from the field and 5-of-8 from 3-point land.

Temple featured a balanced attack with double-digit scoring from three other players, including Dustin Salisbery (25 points, 8-for-8 from the free-throw line), Mark Tyndale (15 points, nine rebounds) and Semaj Inge (11 points).

The Owls shot 53.4 percent from the field and 50 percent from downtown. Ford believes that it was the hot shooting that kept the Minutemen on their heels.

“The 3-point shot got them going,” Ford said. “It wasn’t really our offense. It was their offense. It was our defense. We could just never get in a flow because we could just never stop them. We could never get out on the break.

“That’s not a scenario [you want] when you are just taking the ball out of the net,” he added. “We just couldn’t get any flow. They just made a lot of shots. Every time we would make a run they would come down and make some threes. We were in their face and they hit the shots – give Temple all the credit.”

The loss to the Owls significantly damages the Minutemen’s chances of getting an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament, and the Minutemen have two more road games before returning home on Feb. 21 to face Saint Bonaventure in the first game of a three-game home stand.

Ford knows that winning on the road is no easy task.

“It doesn’t get any easier,” he said. “[Fordham is] a very, very good basketball team. We have to just get back to work and focus on Fordham.”

Rob Greenfield can be reached at [email protected].