DURHAM – Duke senior forward Kyle Singler's first field goal attempt Wednesday night looked like the shots he was missing during a 20-for-61 slump over five games.

After driving hard to the basket, he left the ball a bit too delicately on the front of the rim, and it rolled back out.

His coaches reminded him that he needs to finish stronger when he gets close to the basket. Singler took their advice and broke out of his mini-slump for 28 points, two short of his career high, as top-ranked Duke outmuscled No. 24 Temple in a 78-61 win at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Singler shot 10-for-19 from the field and 8-for-8 from the foul line, forgoing jump shots for drives and post-ups.

"I just felt like I could get good position on my defender," Singler said, "and the bigs were actually passing the ball to me, so I got good post entries and was able to get the ball and put it back up"

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said part of Singler's shooting woes stemmed from a tendency to treat shots in the lane as though they were jumpers. Instead of powering toward the basket, Singler was treading a bit too lightly in the lane.

The result was five straight games scoring below his average, which now stands at 17.2 points per game. Except for a career low-tying, two-point effort on Feb. 16 at Virginia, though, Krzyzewski said Singler hadn't let his shooting slump affect his defense.

Although Singler's scoring attracted most of the attention Wednesday, his defense remained stellar. He helped hold Temple's Ramone Moore to eight points, seven below his average.

"Kyle has just been doing that all year," Krzyzewski said. "He's been an amazing player. I think he's as good defensively as anybody because he has the determination and stick-to-itiveness to defend and work through screens while still doing his offensive game."

Singler led a team defense that held Temple to 39.3 percent from the field in a highly anticipated nonconference game. The Owls (21-6) were just the third team in the current top 25 that the Blue Devils have faced, and they came to Durham two days after Duke returned to the No. 1 spot in the polls.

Temple was missing injured No. 2 scorer Scootie Randall, who has an injured right foot, but defended ferociously in the first half. The Blue Devils (26-2) shot just 37 percent from the field before halftime, but got 12 first-half points from Singler.

"He was terrific tonight," said Temple coach Fran Dunphy. "He had a couple really hard drives to the rim that just, he was not to be denied."

Seth Curry made a 3-pointer one second before halftime to extend Duke's lead to 31-24 at the break. Another Curry 3-pointer, this one in transition, helped the Blue Devils score seven of the first nine points of the second half to increase the margin to 12 points.

Senior guard Nolan Smith added 15 points for Duke, which won its seventh straight game and got its No. 2 scorer – and the most outstanding player of the 2010 Final Four - back in rhythm.

"He knows how to play this game," Smith said. "He's going to continue to work and gets his shots up every day. It was just a matter of time before he got going."