AP Photo

February 26, 2009

John Lamb | A10CollegeHoops

PHILADELPHIA – Before tipoff, it was not too hard to imagine tonight’s game against La Salle as a trap game for Temple with Dayton, a game with NCAA and A-10 implications, on the schedule for Saturday.

Temple Head Coach Fran Dunphy stated that his staff has not spoken one word about Dayton this week. Senior Dionte Christmas said that the players were focused on La Salle and La Salle only.

It sure did not look that way as the Explorers (15-12, 6-7 A-10, 3-1 Big 5) were able to defeat the Owls (17-10, 9-4, 1-2) 70-63 at the Liacouras Center on Thursday night. The Explorers had never won a game in the Liacouras Center in seven previous attempts.

La Salle was led by junior Rodney Green who scored 22 points off the bench and dished out a game-high eight assists. This was the first game in close to two seasons that Green was not in the starting lineup for the Explorers. La Salle’s head coach Dr. John Giannini said that the shakeup was due, in part, to a change in philosophy after his team lost at home to Duquesne this past Sunday.

“I’ve been extremely loyal to great kids. Rodney’s recruiting class and Paul Johnson came to La Salle at a critical point in our program when it wasn’t a popular place to go,” said Giannini, who has guided the Explorers to their best Big 5 finish since the 4-0 Lionel Simmons team from 1989-90. “But, we feel at this point that we should be better than what we are and loyalty needs to be a two-way street.”

“What we’ve done is start guys who win in practice. Everyone played hard but we need to start to reward guys who win and that starts in practice. We had three October-type practices. We had practices were the winners got to start and guys who weren’t winning were not going to start. Every job is open. As much as I love Rodney, as much as I love all our guys we’re going to start to be more fair than loyal.”

Green did not seem too distraught about Giannini’s new approach: “You win in practice and you start. That’s how it should be. It’s good to see that it paid off today.”

Darryl Partin and Steve Weingarten were the surprise starters. Partin hit two three-pointers in the first half but missed all six of his shots in the second and finished the night with a 2-for-12 shooting line, including 2-of-8 from beyond the arc. Weingarten tied his career high with 2 points in 10 minutes on the court.

Kimmani Barret was also a big part of La Salle’s success. The junior guard scored 20 points with eight of them coming from the foul stripe. Temple repeatedly put the 74 percent free-throw shooter on the line down the stretch and he made them pay by going 5-of-7 in the second half.

Temple took a 34-31 lead into the half thanks to Ryan Brooks’ big shots. The Owls were down 28-27 with a little over three minutes left in the half when Christmas found Brooks alone in the corner on a fast break for a wide open three to regain the lead.

On the next Temple possession, Brooks was on the receiving end of a slick Juan Fernandez pass that led to an easy layup and pushed the Owls’ lead to four.

Both Brooks and Christmas finished the half with 11 points. Christmas went on to score a team-high 19 while  Brooks was held scoreless in the second half.

“Coach talked about it at halftime, we knew they got good shooters in Brooks and Christmas,” said Green. “We gave them some easy shots in the first half. We just had to stop them in the second half.”

The Owls could have taken a larger lead into the break but Semaj Inge picked up two costly fouls at once. He was hit with a technical foul after arguing with the referee on his original call of a reach-in on Barrett. He ended up hitting both technical free-throws and splitting the one-and-one.

Needless to say, Dunphy was not pleased with the way his senior captain reacted.

“Obviously Semaj said something that the official didn’t like,” said Dunphy. “It ruined the rhythm of where we were. It’s not something I was pleased about. You don’t ever want your guys to get technicals. I don’t get technicals so there is no need for the kids to get them.”

Both teams traded baskets and leads after the break. La Salle was able to build a five point lead with 8:44 remaining in the game. Inge hit a floating jumper to cut the lead to three and then Dionte Christmas stole the inbounds pass and hit a three to tie the game at 53 with 8:11.

Temple had all of the momentum at that point but, on the ensuing possession, Green hit a three-pointer from the top of the key to silence the crowd and put the Explorers on top for good.

“The biggest play of the game was when we tied it back up again and Rodney Green stepped up and made a huge three,” said Dunphy. “It was a terrific shot and they deserved to win the game. Their will was certainly greater than ours tonight.”

“[Rodney's] mindset was get it and run it right down our throat.”

The Owls had a chance to make things interesting at the end of the game as Green received an inbounds pass and then stepped on the baseline to give the ball back to Temple with 51 seconds left. Down only four points, Inge rushed a three-pointer that missed when he could have  driven to the basket. Green grabbed the rebound and the Explorers were able to hold on.

Christmas continued his recent trend poor shooting from behind the three-point line. He shot 3-of-11 for the game from three. As a team, the Owls shot just 29 percent (7-of-24).

The Owls received solid contributions from Sergio Olmos and Lavoy Allen. Olmos scored 14 points and grabbed six rebounds. Allen nabbed 12 boards, to go along with eight points and three blocks.

Allen was a huge factor in Temple’s previous victory over La Salle at the Tom Gola Arena so it was a bit odd that he only took six shots. Dunphy said that it was a mixture of the Explorers’ defense and Temple’s perimeter players not looking for him enough.

The Explorers held a 42-34 rebounding advantage, including 16 offensive boards to Temple’s nine. La Salle was also able to get out in transition as they scored 22 fast break points to the Owls’ two.

Next up for the Owls is trip out to Dayton, Ohio for a showdown with the Flyers on Saturday afternoon. La Salle will welcome UMass to the Tom Gola Arena on Sunday afternoon.

POST GAME AUDIO: (right click and save as.. if you have trouble opening)
Dr. John Giannini and Rodney Green Press Conference
Fran Dunphy and Dionte Christmas Press Conference

John Lamb can be reached at johnlamb@a10collegehoops.com