Temple, Drexel pull upsets in low-scoring games

For Temple and Villanova, it was another one of those games. For Drexel and Saint Joseph's, it was anything but ordinary.

The fans who came to the second and third games of Saturday's Big 5 Classic did so expecting excitement, but also knowing that the Wildcats and Hawks were clear favorites.

But as has happened so many times at the Palestra, the basketball gods had other ideas.

Temple 53, Villanova 52

The surprises in this game came early. Temple center Keith Butler opened the scoring with a ferocious dunk that drew a foul on Wildcats junior guard Randy Foye, and the senior converted the ensuing free throw.

After that, Villanova missed five straight three-pointers, and did not score until Foye finally delivered from outside the arc nearly two and a half minutes into the game.

That was followed by six more missed Wildcat threes, and five by the Owls. It was 24-23 at halftime, and Villanova had made only three of 17 three-point shots in the first half.

Yet while there wasn't much scoring, the teams' intensity never wavered. In the final minutes, every basket was treated the way soccer fans treat a goal in the World Cup.

With 1:10 to play, the two teams were tied at 50. The game had turned into another one of those Palestra classics, and now it was time for one of the day's protagonists to be a hero.

So as he has done so often for John Chaney, Temple guard Mardy Collins took over the game. He drove inside, then turned and dished the ball out to a wide open Dustin Salisbery, who stood completely unguarded at the three-point line. He drained the shot, and the cherry-clad faithful behind that basket erupted.

But Temple had been in close games twice this season, and lost both of them -- 80-78 to Auburn and 65-62 to Arizona State. So it came as no surprise when Salisbery fouled Villanova forward Curtis Sumpter with 12 seconds to play, and the junior made both free throws.

Four seconds later, Wildcats forward Jason Fraser fouled Temple's sensational freshman guard Mark Tyndale, but Tyndale missed the front end of a one-and-one, giving the Wildcats one chance to steal the victory.

Foye raced up the floor with the ball, drove the lane and kicked it out to Sumpter. As the ball flew toward the net, the Palestra crowd finally fell silent.

But that momentary peace was shattered by the sound of ball hitting rim. The Temple student section rushed the floor to celebrate, by far, its biggest win of this young season.

"People come here expecting something to happen that's exciting," Owls coach John Chaney said. "It's surprising to come here and find that there's no excitement, and the players are not excited about playing here."

Villanova coach Jay Wright blamed himself for the loss, admitting that he should have called a timeout after Foye crossed midcourt.

"Randy went with it and I'll live with that," Wright said. "I've got to live with that, and it was my mistake, it wasn't Randy's. That's basketball -- you go with that, you go with your gut."

Both coaches nonetheless extolled the virtues of playing such a game on the Palestra's hallowed floor.

"It was great -- maybe not for a fan, when you see 53-52," Wright said. "But remember, Bill Raftery always says, Louie Carnesecca used to play Rollie Massimino and it was 6-5 at halftime and they were both happy, no one else was. It was that kind of game."

Chaney, at his comedic best in the post-game press conference, called the Palestra "the third rail."

"If you try to coach, you can't coach, because [the players] can't hear you," he said. "In the first half, I'm talking to their asses, when they're [going] that way, and Jay is talking to their faces."

Drexel 57, Saint Joseph's 49

St. Joe's fans streamed into the Palestra by the thousands for the tripleheader's nightcap, hoping to see their team extend its 12-game winning streak on 33rd Street. By the end of the long night, though, only the smaller contingent of Drexel fans behind the east basket was cheering.

The Dragons played ferocious defense all night, holding Hawks guard Pat Carroll to 2-of-13 shooting and only one made three-pointer from eight attempts.

With memories of the 81-50 loss to Penn still fresh, Drexel simply outworked its more famous opponent, as coach Bruiser Flint got his first win in the Big 5 Classic.

Chaz Crawford, Bashir Mason and Phil Goss combined for 32 points, 19 rebounds and six steals for the Dragons, who forced a total of 23 St. Joe's turnovers and kept the Hawks' offense out of sync the entire night.

"The first thing that we wrote on the board offensively was that we would be guarded," Hawks coach Phil Martelli said. "And our reaction to being guarded was to throw the damn thing all over the place."

Drexel stretched its lead to as many as 13 points in the second half, but St. Joe's clawed back to make it 47-46 with 1:40 to go. The Dragons held on, though, as Mason, Goss and Kenell Sanchez made 10 of 12 free throws from that point on.

"We grinded it out tonight and that's what we do," Drexel coach Bruiser Flint -- a St. Joe's alum -- said. "We get up on people defensively, we make some shots, that's what we do."

Flint said that he did not care whether or not Martelli underestimated his team coming into the night.

"If they did, hey, that's on them," he said. "They took the 'L.'"

Martelli, on the other hand, took the loss to a city rival almost personally.

"This is like getting kicked in the stomach -- because this is a family show -- it's lower than your stomach, is what it feels like," he said.

He added that "they took it because they were more fierce in the beginning of the game, in my opinion, so it irks me a great deal."

At least Martelli wasn't the only person in the building who took the day that seriously, which is why this year's Big 5 Classic was yet another rousing success for the city's game.

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