Tulane men’s basketball (10-21, 3-15 American Athletic Conference) held its ground, but was unable to fend off Temple (20-10, 14-4 AAC) in a frustrating loss to the Owls 64-56 Sunday.

Senior guard Louis Dabney scored 16 points, moving him into Tulane’s top-ten all-time scoring with 1,434 career points.

“It means a lot, but at the end of the day what I really wanted was the win.” Dabney said. “I mean I’m grateful for it, but I really wanted the win.”

Dabney and redshirt junior guard Malik Morgan each played valiantly with a combined 32 points, five steals. Morgan also contributed a team-high nine rebounds.

While Morgan started the game hot making four of his first five shots, Dabney ended the game strong scoring 7 points in the last three minutes.

Melvin Frazier contributed a high-energy performance for the Wave racking up eight rebounds, a steal and a posterizing dunk that brought the crowd to its feet.

The frontcourt duo of Dylan Osetkowski and Ryan Smith worked well together at times, grabbing offensive boards and finding each other in the paint for some easy finishes, however, they finished with just 11 points and 11 rebounds between the two.

Tulane’s demise was its shooting, hitting only 34 percent from the field and 44 percent from the line.

“[Poor shooting] kind of takes a toll on us throughout the season.” Morgan said. “We know that we get really good looks at times and we know those are the ones that we have to knock down the most. Unfortunately, this year we weren’t able to hit those on a consistent basis, but I feel like the way we move the ball, the way we attack, we’ll always get open shots.”

Tulane men’s basketball faces the No. 7 seed UCF Thursday at the AAC Tournament in Orlando.