The men's basketball team accomplished most of its objectives in last night's contest with Temple. However, it failed to achieve a very important one -- winning.

All-American Mark Macon led all scorers with 25 and the Owls shot a stellar 73 percent from the floor in the second half to hold off a Penn State rally and record a 69-59 Atlantic 10 victory in Rec Hall.

"Temple played an incredible game. I don't know if I can remember a team playing any better than that," Coach Bruce Parkhill said. "We wanted to minimize their 3-point field goals, we accomplished that. We wanted to limit their second shots, we did that. But they were incredible."

Temple (17-6) now moves to 11-3 in the conference and remains tied with Rutgers for the A-10's top spot. Penn State (15-8, 8-6) is now in a fourth-place tie with Massachusetts. The Lions meet the Minutemen Saturday.

Macon, who usually sparks the Owls offensively, started sluggish. He was 0-of-4 to start the game and turned the ball over twice. Despite their leader's slow start, the Owls raced to a 5-0 lead on the strength of three-straight points from forward Mik Kilgore.

"Normally, we find ourselves going four or five minutes with Mik shooting airballs and bowling balls, whatever," Coach John Chaney said. "Tonight, he got off to a good start which helped get that side of the floor working for us."

The Lions hung on early and, capitalizing on early Temple mistakes, stayed within striking distance. Penn State guard Freddie Barnes buried a 3-point jumper to start the Lions' scoring. The Lions then took their first and only lead at 11-9 with 12:00 remaining.

Kilgore, who finished with 13 points, opened the court for the Owls' regular leaders. Macon regained his composure and center Donald Hodge, who did not start for the first time this season, took over. Hodge, who finished the game with 10 points, ignited a 10-0 Owl run with five straight points.

The Temple lead hovered around 10 throughout the period, climaxing in a 33-21 halftime advantage. The Lions shot only 34 percent in the opening period and hit only 1-of-7 from the 3-point stripe while trying to cut the lead. The Lions had nine turnovers in the opening half.

"We only played one half. For the most part, we didn't play well enough to win the game," guard Monroe Brown said. "I was totally disgusted with the way I played. I felt inactive in the first half and, watching from the bench, we were very passive on offense."

The Lions, as they have done so often this season, turned their play up a notch to start the second half. Working the ball inside to James Barnes, Penn State chipped away at the Temple lead.

"Temple got some fouls early in the first half, so we thought we could take it right to them and get some baskets inside and that's what we wanted to do," Barnes said.

Barnes scored nine of his 13 points in the second half and pulled down 10 rebounds, recording his third straight double-double and the eighth of his career. The Lions netted the first seven points of the half to cut the lead to five with 16:31 remaining.

The two teams went back and forth from there, matching point for point. Another mini-run cut the lead to four at 43-39 with 11:04 remaining.

"In the first half, we dug ourselves a hole by not hitting the shots we needed to hit," Parkhill said. "When you're playing a team that hot you have to try top stay in the hunt by trading baskets. Every time we scored, they came up with a really big play."

Following a TV timeout, Temple implemented a stingy ball-control offense to keep the Lions at arm's length. Slowing down the pace and orchestrating the methodical offense, the Owls hit several keys shots down the stretch after burning up the 45-second clock.

"There's a point when you say, 'This just wasn't meant to be,' " Parkhill said. "At times they would wind the clock down and make a tough shot --that's demoralizing."

Temple then pulled away for good. After a James Barnes' layup cut the lead to 55-51, the Owls raced to the finish with a mix of inside penetration and foul shooting. The Owls missed only four shots in the second half, shooting 11-of-15 from the floor.

"You work so hard to stop them and they want to use the clock anyway," Brown said. "When they make a basket, that hurts a lot."

Freddie Barnes paced the Lion effort with 18 points and DeRon Hayes finished with 16 points. The pair shot 7-of-15 apiece from the floor in the game. Center Dave Degitz, coming off a strong performance last Saturday, was held scoreless by the Owls' defense.

The Lions recovered from a 34 percent shooting effort in the opening period to post a 40 percent mark for the contest. Depite the success of the inside game in the second half, the Lions were again unable to overcome a slow start.

"We just have to put together two halves. We're just playing for 20 minutes," James Barnes said. "We need to put together a complete game. Until we do that we're not going to get on a roll."