Second half propels St. Joe's past La Salle

If the stunning comebacks in the 1999 and 2005 Penn-Princeton games at the Palestra hadn't happened, this game might go down as the arena's best example of a game of two halves.

Or at least it would for Saint Joseph's.

The Hawks defeated La Salle by a score of 66-54 in a matchup that was divided in half not just by the clock but by the scoreboard.

La Salle scored 27 points in each half. The Hawks, meanwhile, scored 16 points in the first half and 50 in the second, giving themselves a 66-54 win and a big shot of confidence ahead of their midweek trip to Atlantic 10 newcomer Saint Louis.

"You could just see there was just a little bit of a sense of relief," St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli said. "It was really rolling downhill there once we started to make some shots."

The Explorers (10-6, 2-4 Atlantic 10) held the Hawks to only three field goals on 21 attempts in the first half. For much of that time, the La Salle fans in the crowd of 8,521 at the Palestra were in full throat, while the St. Joe's (7-8, 2-4 A-10) fans weren't nearly as raucous as they usually are in Big 5 games.

At halftime, though, Martelli changed his defense, and gave his players some extra motivation in the form of Pat Carroll, the sharpshooting guard who graduated last year.

"While the coaches were meeting in a separate room in the locker room, Pat was in there talking to the players about harder movement and more confident shooting," Martelli said.

Whatever Carroll said clearly worked, as his ex-teammates shot 50 percent from the field and 5-of-11 from three-point range. Chet Stachitas scored all 15 of his points in the second half.

The Hawks' defense stepped up too, holding La Salle to only 27.6 percent field goal shooting and one made three-pointer after halftime.

"That win was attributable to the defense," Martelli said. "Players defended like it hurt them to be scored on."

Hawks guard Abdulai Jalloh and La Salle forward Steve Smith both scored 17 points. Smith is averaging 19.6 points per game this season.

No. 8 Villanova 80, No. 20 Syracuse 65

From afar, this might have seemed like a matchup of No. 8 Villanova's three-point sharpshooters and No. 20 Syracuse's famed 2-3 zone defense.

But Wildcats coach Jay Wright threw that script out almost immediately.

Yes, his team hit seven of its first 12 shots from beyond the arc on the way to a 26-8 lead just over midway through the first half. But forward Will Sheridan logged 35 minutes before fouling out, while frontcourt partners Jason Fraser and Dante Cunningham combined for 35 more.

They added just the right amount of power to deal with the Orange's size advantage. The Wildcats (13-2, 4-1 Big East) held the lead the entire game, and ended up with a 80-65 win in yet another ferocious Big East matchup.

"We've all talked a lot about the four-guard offense because that's what you guys ask me, so I answer it," Villanova coach Jay Wright said to the big assembly of reporters in front of him. "But we've said all along that we do play with two forwards a lot. ... We're able to use both" systems.

It was Sheridan who made what might have been the game's biggest play. Over the first nine minutes of the second half, Syracuse (15-4, 3-2 Big East) outscored Villanova 17-2, cutting a 39-20 halftime deficit to 41-37.

For the first time all night, the contingent of Orange fans in the Wachovia Center's upper deck was on its feet, while the Wildcats fans around them started getting a little nervous.

Villanova pushed its lead back out to 49-42 -- and then came the play that likely changed the game for good.

Sheridan picked off a Gerry McNamara pass and fed it up the court to Kyle Lowry. The speedy point guard then raced away and made a layup that brought the crowd of 20,581 -- the largest ever to watch a college basketball game in Pennsylvania -- to its feet. Lowry was fouled on the way up to the basket by Eric Devendorf and converted the ensuing free throw to give the Wildcats a 10-point lead.

"That was a big play, and he's always done that for us," Wright said of Sheridan for his role in the play.

The biggest number of the evening was also one of the smallest. McNamara, the Orange's team leader and a native of Scranton, Pa., was held to only four points on 1-of-8 shooting, and attempted just one three-pointer.

"It was part of our game plan not to let him get any easy looks," Ray said.

Ray finished as the game's leading scorer with 22 points, while Foye recorded 20. Freshman Devendorf was Syracuse's leading scorer with 21 points.

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