Explorers beat Owls, but fail to close out win in St. Louis

By Mike McDonald
Collegian Editor
February 21, 2007

The men’s basketball team had a chance this week to give itself a big boost towards the Atlantic 10 Tournament, but a late-game collapse against Saint Louis prevented the team from completing the perfect week.

Junior Darnell Harris shoots over Temple’s Dionte Christmas. - Mike Dao

Wednesday night at the Tom Gola Arena, La Salle exacted some revenge on Big Five rival Temple. Ten days before, the Owls had laid a 25-point thumping on the Explorers. This was a much different game, and La Salle was able to pull out the victory in entertaining fashion.

The lead went back and forth all night long, and no one was able to take control. La Salle led by as much as seven in the first half, but Temple closed the gap to 39-36 at the break.

Despite the close score at the half, many positive trends had begun to take shape for the Explorers. La Salle shot 57.7 percent from the floor in the opening half, and the scoring was spread around, with five Explorers scoring at least five points. La Salle also held a sizable advantage in rebounding, 19-12. More importantly, though, the Explorers held Temple star Dionte Christmas to just eight first half points on 2-for-7 shooting.

“He forced a couple shots,” Temple coach Fran Dunphy said. “Tonight I think he just tried to do too much.”

The second half provided more closely-contested basketball. In a half that featured eight lead changes, both teams led by as much as seven at some point. Things started to get a little shaky for the Explorers about five minutes into the second half.

With 14:47 left on the clock, junior Darnell Harris nailed a three-pointer to put La Salle up by a score of 53-48. Then Dionte Christmas came to life. He scored eight points in a 12-0 Temple run that put the Owls up by seven.

But when the going got tough, the Explorers were able to get going. La Salle used a balanced attack to outscore Temple 24-12 the rest of the way, and they won it by five.

“These are good kids, they want to win, they do everything we ask of them, so I feel great for them,” La Salle coach John Giannini said.

The free throw line is where the Explorers really won the game. As the result of 26 fouls by Temple, La Salle went 26 for 34 from the charity stripe. Freshman Kimmani Barrett shot 11 of 14 from the free throw line en route to a 19-point performance.

“He’s just more experienced,” Giannini said of Barrett’s development. “I think he’s more confident, he’s more aggressive. He’s just made normal progression, and he’s playing the way we thought he could.”

Junior Darnell Harris was a perfect 8 for 8 from the line, and he scored 24 points on the night to lead the team. Sophomore Paul Johnson also had a good game, as he scored 13 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Barrett was the leading rebounder for the Explorers, with eight.

For Temple, Dionte Christmas finished the game just 3 for 12 from three-point range. He scored 16 points before fouling out down the stretch.

“All he did tonight was just show that he’s human,” Giannini said of Christmas. “When you score and shoot the ball the way he has been, at some point you’re going to be off for a night. And I think our defense had something to do with that, but I think the guy has been super human, and tonight he was human.”

Mark Tyndale played all 40 minutes and had a huge game. He scored 27 points to go along with 10 rebounds and five assists. All of those numbers were game-highs.

“To come so close so often, to have leads late in games and not win, it’s frustrating,” Giannini said. “And today, we took a step forward. We closed the game out. They made a run; we had poise. They had a decent lead; we came back. Our guys did a lot of positive things today. They deserve some success.”

The win was a crucial one for the Explorers. It gave them the same number of conference wins as St. Bonaventure (three), the team they are trying to overtake to get into the A-10 Tournament.

“We didn’t play very well, and I think La Salle deserves a lot of credit,” Dunphy said.

On Saturday, the Explorers were trying to make it a 2-0 week when they headed out to St. Louis, Mo. for a showdown with the Saint Louis Billikens at the Scottrade Center. Saint Louis came into the game at 5-6 in the Atlantic 10 and 15-10 overall.

The first half of this game was very evenly played. The two teams went to the break tied at 23, and the statistics were quite similar for the two squads.

La Salle shot 40.7 percent from the field, while Saint Louis shot 39.1 percent. The Explorers held a slight edge in rebounding, and the Billikens held a slight edge in three-point shooting. Senior Mike St. John led the Explorers with seven points in the first half.

The Explorers took a 34-33 lead with 15:19 left in the game and continued to play pretty good basketball. A Sherman Diaz three-pointer with 7:42 remaining put the Explorers up by eight, with the score 53-45. This is where things took a turn for the worse.

Saint Louis started to get it together, and the Explorers started to lose control. La Salle started to slow things down offensively and run the shot clock down, and as they did, they watched their lead melt away. The Explorers failed to make a field goal after that 7:42 mark, and a 14-2 stretch for Saint Louis ended the game.

Kevin Lisch of Saint Louis scored 24 points to lead all scorers. Twenty of his 24 points were scored in the second half, and he was a major player in the big Saint Louis run.

This loss leaves the Explorers in a very tough spot. They are currently tied with St. Bonaventure in the win column, and because of the Explorers’ Jan. 21 loss to the Bonnies, St. Bonaventure owns the tiebreaker. This means that La Salle will need to win at least one more game to have a chance to steal that 12th spot.

“You can’t say that we’ve been a good team because of our record,” Giannini said after the win against Temple. “But outside of two [Atlantic 10] games, and those two games would be St. Joe’s and Temple the first time around, we’ve been in position to win every single game.”

There are only three games left on the regular season schedule, and the Explorers need to find a win in at least one of them to get to Atlantic City. Remaining on La Salle’s schedule are George Washington, Massachusetts and Xavier. George Washington comes to town on Sunday for a noon matchup at the Tom Gola Arena.

mcdonaldm2@lasalle.edu