PHILADELPHIA (AP) Montrezl Harrell scored a career-high 22 points and No. 13 Louisville built a 30-point first-half lead en route to an 82-58 victory over Temple on Friday night.
Russ Smith added 15 points to help the Cardinals (20-4, 9-2 American Athletic Conference) improve to 7-1 in their last eight games.
Wayne Blackshear finished with 13 points, Luke Hancock scored 11, and Harrell had 10 rebounds and four blocks in the game postponed a day because of a snowstorm.
Anthony Lee and Will Cummings led Temple (6-17, 1-10) with 14 points apiece. The Owls shot 37.3 percent from the field to drop their fourth straight game and fall into a tie for last place in the conference with Central Florida.
Louisville shot over 60 percent in the first half and went on runs of 10-0 and 17-2 to take a 52-25 lead into the break. Both of those spurts were highlighted by alley oops finished by Harrell, who had four dunks in the first half and two more in the second.
Harrell's sixth dunk came with 11:04 remaining and gave Louisville its largest lead of the game to that point at 73-40. Temple only began to slice into the deficit when the Cardinals emptied their bench.
Hoping for an upset, Temple designated the contest a ''White-Out,'' distributing 8,000 white t-shirts to fans. But because of a sparse crowd, a majority of those t-shirts were left on their seats. And the undermanned and overmatched Owls never threatened to upset the defending national champs, committing eight turnovers in the first half and shooting 29 percent from 3-point range for the game.
Temple fans did get some good news Friday when it was announced that Owls great Guy Rodgers had been elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. A two-time All-America selection, Rodgers scored 1,767 points in three seasons (1955-58) and led the Owls to two Final Fours (1956, 1958). He will join former Temple coaches John Chaney and Harry Litwack in the Hall of Fame.
