Philadelphia — The sight of Jalen Adams being helped off the court and to the locker room was painful enough for the UConn Huskies.

What transpired after Adams left the Wednesday's American Athletic Conference game at Temple also was hard to watch.

Doomed by yet another slow start on the road and a knee injury to to their leading scorer, UConn suffered a brutal loss, falling 81-63 at the Liacouras Center.

The game was never close after the Owls (17-6, 7-3) roared to a 46-20 halftime lead.

UConn (13-10, 4-6), which is 0-5 on the road, already was heading down a dead end road when Temple's J.P. Moorman II appeared to roll over Adams' leg during a scramble for a loose ball in the lane. Adams grabbed his left knee as play stopped about six minutes into the game.

Adams did not return and team officials said he sprained the MCL in his left knee. He will have on MRI on Thursday.

"We're just praying for him and hope he gets better as soon as possible," junior Christian Vital said. "Obviously, Jalen's injury affected us a lot. Guys were put in situations that they weren't really used to. It was just a tough night for us."

Coach Dan Hurley added: "Obviously, he's really emotional and so is the team because he's beloved by his teammates and the new staff has grown quite a liking to him as well."

The Huskies played without Adams for the final 18 minutes on Sunday against East Carolina after Hurley benched his starting guard. But they still rolled to a 24-point win.

But Temple is far better than East Carolina. And UConn paid for its lethargic start.

"Disappointing performance by us," Hurley said. "Obviously, I didn't have our team ready to play to start the game. We talked about Temple being a team that really likes to start fast offensively and the firepower that they have on the perimeter. Those first couple of possessions, they were able to get comfortable and confident.

"... You dig a hole like that for yourself in the first half of the game, it's embarrassing and you eliminate any chance to get yourself back in the game and get a win."

UConn self-destructed on both ends. The Huskies looked out of sync and fired up what Hurley called some bizarre shots. They put up little resistance on defense.

Temple got sizzling hot, making eight of its first nine shots.

After Adams departed, Temple outscored UConn 30-10 the remainder of the half. Junior Quinton Rose's 3-pointer, one of 11 from bonus land in the game for the Owls, sparked a 15-0 spurt that pushed the lead to 28-10 with 10:30 left.

Reserve Eric Cobb's inside basket ended a UConn scoreless drought that lasted five minutes, nine seconds. The Huskies made just four more field goals before the break and went shot an icy 32.1 percent (9-for-28). The Owls converted a torrid 62.1 percent (18-for-29).

"Sometimes you have to give the other guy credit for kicking the crap out of you, and that's what was going on out there," Hurley said.

UConn faced its largest deficit (26) of the season at halftime. It also scored a season low for points (20) and allowed a season high (46) in a half this season.

The bulk of UConn's damage came after the game was already decided.

Sophomore Josh Carlton came to life, scoring 16 of his 18 points and grabbing 11 of his 13 rebounds after intermission. Vital chipped in 18 points, a season-high 13 rebounds and five assists. Cobb had his first double digit scoring output since Dec. 2, finishing with 13 points to go with five rebounds.

Five Owls scored in double figures, led by senior Shizz Alston Jr's 18 and sophomore Nate Pierre-Louis's 17. Temple finished shooting 52.7 percent, UConn 40.3 percent.

"The only thing that we can walk away with from this is guys battled in the second half," Hurley said. "It could have gotten really, really ugly out there with how well they were playing and how poorly we were playing.

".. Obviously got to figure out really quickly how we're going to recover from this, because this stretch of games that we've got coming up is not exactly an easy one."

Wednesday's game represented the start of toughest stretch of the season for the Huskies, who'll play at Memphis on Sunday before hosting AAC co-leader Houston. Then they visit SMU, host co-leader Cincinnati and travel to Wichita State.

It's highly likely that UConn will be without Adams on Sunday but there's a chance that guard Alterique Gilbert (left shoulder) could return. Gilbert missed his third straight game on Wednesday.

g.keefe@theday.com