PHILADELPHIA (2/21/04) -
Delonte West and
Jameer Nelson combined for 38 points as second-ranked Saint Joseph's ran its record to 24-0, and 13-0 in the Atlantic 10, with the 76-53 win over city rival Temple at the standing-room only Palestra. The Hawks clinch their second straight outright Big 5 title with the victory.
The much-anticipated rematch between the teams started out slowly, but once the Hawks scored, they rolled to a 13-5 lead with 13:43 to play. Temple cut a 19-9 SJU lead to 20-17 with 8:15 to play. Then with Saint Joseph's leading 23-20 at the 7-minute mark, SJU went on a 10-1 run.
The Hawk defense held Temple to 22.2 percent shooting in the first half, while converting 56.5 percent en route to a 41-23 halftime lead.
Temple tried different defensive looks geared to shut down Nelson and West, but it only opened up the Hawks' other perimeter shooters. Carroll benefitted the most, hitting eight of his 14 points in the second half, as he converted 4-of-7 from 3-point range.
SJU came out strong in the second half, jumping out to a 52-30 lead with 14:09 to play. SJU's lead never got smaller than 17 points and hit a high margin of 24 points twice.
West had seven rebounds and seven assists with Nelson grabbing a team-high nine rebounds. Defensive specialist Tyrone Barley came off the bench to add nine points.
Saint Joseph's limited Temple's leading scorer David Hawkins to just 13 points, below his 24.4 point average. The Owls drop to 12-11 on the year and 6-6 in the A10 and 1-2 in the Big 5.
The Hawks and Stanford remain the nation's only unbeaten teams. SJU goes on the road this week to New England, facing Massachusetts on Wednesday, Feb. 25 and Rhode Island on Feb. 28 in an ESPN2 game.
