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La Salle freshman Gary Neal had 21 points in 27 minutes off the bench in a losing effort. [Will Burhop/The Daily Pennsylvanian]

The undercard in Saturday's Big 5 Classic was in many ways more entertaining, and unquestionably more competitive, than the main event, as St. Joe's and Villanova emerged with hard-fought victories at the Palestra.

The opener between St. Joe's (5-0) and Drexel (3-2) began at 1 p.m. as sunlight poured onto the court from the upper windows of the building.

St. Joe's threatened to take Drexel out of the game right at the start.

The Hawks opened the contest with an 8-0 run, as the Dragons failed to score until Robert Battle slammed home the first basket with 3:37 gone by.

St. Joe's used a smothering defensive performance to shut down Drexel for most of the afternoon. The Dragons recorded only 37 points in a 50-37 victory by the Hawks.

Throughout the game, Drexel had a great deal of difficulty in locating open shots.

And in those rare instances when they could, it was another problem altogether to convert on them.

"You can't miss foul shots, you can't miss wide open lay-ups underneath the basket," Drexel coach James "Bruiser" Flint said.

Despite the missed opportunities, Drexel was able to trim a second-half lead once as large as 18 down to five on two occasions.

The Dragons used a 13-0 run to cut it to 40-35 with 5:37 remaining, but St. Joe's went on to score 10 of the game's final 12 points.

"That is exactly the way we guard on every possession in practice," St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli said, as he raved about his team's defense.

"It has nothing to do with schemes, it is not some revelation by coaching gods that zapped me in the brain. It's six mean, tough, perimeter guys and inside guys."

Flint, who played for St. Joe's, feels that his team is good enough to be adopted by the Big 5, but remains realistic.

"I don't know about that," he said. "It's like a good old boy network, and those things are hard to crack. Just ask Augusta National."

*

A capacity crowd of 8,722 saw by far the best game of the day when Villanova (4-2) topped La Salle (3-2), 74-71.

A young La Salle team, which starts two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior, played admirably against a more veteran Wildcat club before coming up just short.

The Explorers also received a terrific effort from their sixth man, freshman Gary Neal. The Baltimore native scored 21 points in 27 minutes off the bench, on 8-for-14 shooting.

The freshman also knocked down five threes in ten attempts, including the shot of the day, an off-balance, fade-away connection that knotted the game at 64 with 4:11 remaining.

Villanova coach Jay Wright was effusive in his praise of La Salle's top freshmen, Neal and forward Steven Smith.

"I think they're great, and they're playing with great confidence," Wright said. "That's a tribute to [La Salle coach] Billy Hahn because he goes with them, and I think it will pay off for them. It did today."

The two differences in the game, however, were Villanova's power forward Ricky Wright and foul shooting.

Hahn kept the media at the postgame press conference amused with comments on each.

Wright used his physical game to dominate the low post, finishing with 21 points and 12 rebounds.

"I wish Ricky Wright would have eaten a bad piece of fish in Alaska," said Hahn, referring to Villanova's recent participation in the Great Alaska Shootout.

As for his team's poor foul shooting, Hahn asked the press what the stat was. When told 8-for-20, he deadpanned, "Eight-for-20? My assistants were in charge of free throw shooting this week."

Later he added, "Free throws were probably the difference, I would say. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. I graduated from Maryland."

Check out our online Big 5 slideshow.

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