FINAL: La Salle 90, St. Joe's 89

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WOW. Harris misses the front end of the 1-and-1, but on a drive left, Carr loses the ball and the Explorers recover and call timeout with 1.4 to go.

La Salle throws a risky pass the length of the court, and Green gets fouled with a second to go. He misses the first.

A whistle goes off as Green is about to let the second free throw go. He stops mid-shot, and gets called for a violation. He probably would have missed on purpose, making a last-second three almost impossible.

So St. Joe's inbounds with one second to go. They throw it long, and the pass for Calathes under the basket is knocked by La Salle to Carr, but he can't get the shot off in time, and the game is over. I can finally stop holding my breath.

That was, no joke, the most entertaining basketball game I've seen this year.

0:09.3 2nd Half: La Salle 90, St. Joe's 89

Carr hits a quick layup, a real tough one at that, and the Hawks are down one. Harris gets the ball and is fouled.

0:17.6 2nd Half: La Salle 90, St. Joe's 87

An Explorer misses but Green throws down a monstrous put-back dunk. Williamson hit one from the line, and the Explorers lead by one.

With the shot clock winding down at under 20 seconds left, Barrett hits a tough layup while getting double-teamed. This place is LOUD.

1:22 2nd Half: La Salle 86, St. Joe's 85

Green hits two from the line and Carr turns it over. Passing around the traps well, the Explorers can't get off a three like usual, but Mekongo Mbala gets to the line with 1:39 left. He hits the second only to go up 3.

Govens makes a nice entry pass to Nivins, and the big man nails a crucial and-1.

2:39 2nd Half: La Salle 83, St. Joe's 83

Williams is back in with four fouls, but he gets trapped, and Harris misses the three at the end of the shot clock.

Carr goes streaking across the lane, and hits with zeros on the shot clock. But Johnson answers with his ugly, ugly shot from three. Govens finally misses, and Williams gets fouled on the other end.

Calathes misses, and Green hits a bank to tie it at 81. The La Salle crowd goes nuts, and then erupts when Carr misses, and Barrett hits a reverse layup to take the lead. Calathes answers, though, with a runner with 1 on the shot clock.

Green somehow blocks Calathes, and then gets fouled on a transition layup that he can't convert. He punches the backboard protector a bunch in frustration.

7:56 2nd Half: St. Joe's 79, La Salle 75

It's hard to imagine that a guy who already has nearly 30 points won't be the player of the game, but Harris hits what I believe is his fifth three of the game. Govens hits a layup, and he's got 26 points, a third candidate for game MVP.

Garrett Williamson finally makes his presence felt, swatting a Harris three. Calathes goes for a rebound but misses, and angrily sways the ball into the crowd, but he somehow avoids a tech.

The Hawk fans roll out another good sign: "Keep Exploring the bottom of the A-10." Now "Smiley" the Hatfield pig mascot is shooting hot dogs into the Hawks student section. One goes to the Explorer faithful, and to their delight, the fan throws it back onto the court. The last hot dog of about 20 explodes on its way out of the gun.

The Explorers fans put up a banner: "St. Joe's has class... Rivera usually cuts it." referring to the guard who "focused on academics" last semester.

11:39 2nd Half: St. Joe's 74, La Salle 69

Calathes hits, but so does Guillandeaux on another floater.

Harris, who hit three threes in the first half, is unconscious on this deep one over Ferguson. But once again, Govens returns with a jumper and then a three.

The action never stops. Harris makes Carr fall on the baseline, but misses the three. Then Calathes puts the ball around his back and hits Govens for yet another three.

14:38 2nd Half: St. Joe's 62, La Salle 63

Carr hits a three to start off the half, but Green turns a steal into two points. Govens converts a nice layup, and now Nivins takes a charge, giving Williams his fourth foul.

Nivins now gets whistled for a charge, and Martelli slams his hand against the scorer's table. Nice ball-movement gets Gullandeaux an open three, and he connects.

Gullandeaux is taking over now - he hits a jumper in the lane, and then nails a trey in transition. Now Mekongo hits an open three, but it's answered by Govens. Harris takes back the lead, and Govens gets it right back. Now Barrett gets fouled, and the shot is goal-tended, and the Explorer's grab back the lead. This has been maybe most electrifying game I've seen all year.

Halftime: St. Joe's 50, La Salle 46

While this section of my post just got deleted, the half ends with the Hawks on top by four. This was an insane first half, not necessarily with bad defense, but the shooting on both sides has been impeccable. St. Joe's is hitting 67 percent from the field, while La Salle is 47 percent, though 10-for-17 from three.

3:27 1st Half: St. Joe's 43, La Salle 40

Gullandeaux nails a three off of a nifty pass from Williams, and La Salle takes the lead for the first time.

Calathes comes right back with an and-1 layup (that should have been called on the ground). Giannini disagrees, but spends more time calming down Williams. Calathes then scores again on a sweet baseline jumper from 17 feet.

Harris is nothing but net on a three from NBA range. He is money tonight.

I must give the La Salle fans credit, they are real loud tonight, probably better than the Villanova coningent at the Holy War.

6:05 1st Half: St. Joe's 34, La Salle 34

Calathes drains a three, but once again it's answered by the big man, Mekongo Mbala.

Following a Nivins dunk, Mekongo Mbala drains yet another trey, and La Salle has tied it up at 34.

8:21 1st Half: St. Joe's 29, La Salle 25

Johnson hits a transition layup, and the Explorers are within six, and the teams then trade threes.

Off of a tough offensive rebound, Williams slices through for a layup, and the game is real close now.

Huh, the St. Joe's staff has a guy walking around the Palestra selling cotton candy.

11:51 1st Half: St. Joe's 24, La Salle 16

Harris drains a three over Carr, he's he's just nasty, has eight points already.

Nivins just made a fantastic and-1, double-teamed in the post but still getting it up.

Wow, Williams cocks it back for a monster dunk, but gets rejected by Nivins, and the crowd goes crazy.

The Hawks fans roll out a sign: "St. Joe's salutes La Salle fans (Both of them)." A Hawks fan just won a semester of free Qdoba burritos just by hitting a couple of layups and elbow shots. That's just sad. The Penn Qdoba makes you hit a layup, free throw, three and half-court shot.

15:32 1st Half: St. Joe's 15, La Salle 10

Both teams are raining threes, as Harris gets the Explorers on the board, Mekongo Mbala hits another, but Calathes nails one from the top of the key to extend the St. Joe's lead.

Johnson misses a three, but makes a pretty feed (while getting trapped) to Harris, who makes an even prettier finish. But Govens comes back with a ridiculous reverse layup, throwing it off the backboard with great english.

18:44 1st Half: St. Joe's 6, La Salle 0

On the first possession, Nivins bullys Williams for an easy dunk and then a layup, as Mekongo Mbala completes his team's second-straight turnover. Calathes adds a dunk and Dr. John Giannini calls timeout.

The crowd is about 75 percent full, and the majority are Hawks fans. The La Salle fans let out a pretty loud chant of "Let's go 'splorers!", but it's drowned out eventually by the "Hawks Are Marching In"

We just had a moment of silence for the Northern Illinois shootings, though that moment lasted no more than two or three seconds.

As the La Salle band plays, the St. Joe's students try to belt the chant of "Phil Martelli!" over it. We're just about ready to go at the Palestra, the Hawks wearing the home white, La Salle in blue.

________

With only three games left in the Big 5, nothing is decided. Well, except for that Penn (0-4) won't win.

Villanova (3-1), Temple (1-1), La Salle (1-1) and Saint Joseph's (2-0) all have a shot at winning at least a share of the Big 5 title, though the Hawks are the only team that can win the title outright.

La Salle hasn't been bad lately, going 4-5 in the Atlantic 10, and will likely make the conference tournament, unlike last season. Out of 14 teams, 12 make it to Atlantic City on March 12, and the Explorers sit in 11th place, two games ahead of 13th-place George Washington (3-8).

The Hawks are on the opposite side of the spectrum. Despite recent losses at Xavier and Duquesne, they sit alone in second place at 7-3, though Rhode Island, Richmond and Temple are all one game behind them, chasing those valuable four tourney byes.

An hour before the game, St. Joe's fans are already here. They aren't making much noise, but that's stilll pretty impressive. The Explorers' student faithful start showing up about 45 minutes early. The Hawks fans do one of my favorite chants "When the Hawks come marching in" replacing "Saints" with their team when their team takes the floor a half-hour before tip-off.

Starters:

St. Joe's: G Darrin Govens G Tasheed Carr F Pat Calathes F Rob Ferguson C Ahmad Nivins

La Salle: G Darnell Harris G Rodney Green F Paul Johnson F Jerrell Williams F Yves Mekongo Mbala