Soft Pretzel Logic

Since I haven't posted for a few days, let's give a local Line of the Day and a national one:

First, one for La Salle's Darnell Harris, who did this in the Explorers' 84-61 win over St. Bonaventure:

Second, one for stud Kansas State freshman Michael Beasley. He did this in the Wildcats' 84-75 win over no-longer-undefeated Kansas, producing one of the biggest court-stormings I've ever seen:

Download it here.

This week, Mike Jensen joins me to discuss:

-- All the big talking points from the St. Joe's-Temple game
-- The poor performance by Villanova's defense against Notre Dame
-- Candidates for Big 5 Player of the Year
-- Penn finally starting conference play
-- The national games of the week

Of note, we're going to hold next week's show until Tuesday so we can recap the Holy War. Because of that, Mike and I preview the game today. One of the big things we talk about is the fact that the game is on CSTV, so a lot of people probably won't get to see it.

I want to hear from you about whether you have CSTV, and if not, whether you'll be able to watch the game. Post a comment or send me an email.

Also, those of you who subscribe via iTunes might have noticed that we have a new podcast feed. Now you can get individual episode metadata for each new file, instead of having them all look the same as they did on the old feed.

So I'm going to start putting the postgame press conferences I record on the feed. Let me know what you think.

This is the picture that big5fan linked to in his comment, and I had to take it out because URLs in comments do bad things to our servers.

I was pretty sure, though, that JBird was right that the expiration of time is governed by the light on the backboard, not the scoreboard clock.

So in the name of public service, I once again took out my scuba diving gear and plunged into the 181-page monstrosity that is the "NCAA Basketball 2008 Men's and Women's Rules and Interpretations" manual. (the link goes to a .pdf version of it).

Art. 2. Each period shall end when the red light or LED lights has become activated. When the light fails to operate or is not visible, each period shall end with the sounding of the game-clock horn.

Except it seems like that is contradicted by this:

b. In games with a 10th-of-a-second game clock display and where an official courtside monitor is used, the reading of zeros on the game clock is to be used to determine whether a try for goal occurred before or after the expiration of time in any period. When the game clock is not visible, the officials shall verify the original call with the use of the red/LED light(s). When the red/LED light(s) are not visible, the sounding of the game-clock horn shall be utilized. When definitive information is unattainable with the use of the monitor, the original call stands.

I'm going to do some research for clarification and get back to you. Seems like the refs can go either way, though. For what it's worth, the Princeton-Temple game in 2004 had a similar controversy -- actually, looking in the Inquirer archives, it might have been more obvious that time -- and the Owls came out on top.

I do know this. Whether or not the shot would have counted, the block superceded it in the end and St. Joe's won the game. So why are all the Hawks fans going around screaming about how the clock had expired when it didn't matter anyway?

Well, maybe I know the answer to that one...

Postgame audio

-- St. Joe's: Phil Martelli and Pat Calathes
-- Temple: Fran Dunphy
-- Temple: Mark Tyndale and Dionte Christmas

I thought it was a goaltend.

After Mark Tyndale let fly with what was going to be the game-winning, buzzer-beating layup, I thought I saw the ball just barely start coming down before Ahmad Nivins swatted it away.

So did a guy I know who was sitting under that basket and wasn't explicitly rooting for either team, and so did all the Temple fans in the Liacouras Center crowd of 10,045 -- the largest this place has seen in almost four years, and a hell of a lot larger than anything I've ever seen here in person.

But I didn't see the replay, just a split-second of live action that for now only lives in my mind.

Mike Jensen, who will definitely be talking about this on Monday's College HoopsCast, did see the replay and thought it was a fair block.

Regardless, the ref's judgement stands.

In what has to be one of the great games in this rivalry, St. Joe's beat Temple, 68-67, and danced on the Owls' floor when all was said and done.

The deciding sequence went something like this. After Mark Tyndale hit a layup with 42 seconds left to give Temple a 67-65 lead and Phil Martelli called timeout.

On the ensuing possession, Rob Ferguson coughed the ball up with 38 seconds left. It took 18 more seconds for the teams to battle it out for possession, but Dionte Christmas got it in the end and called timeout. Three seconds later, D.J. Rivera fouled Mark Tyndale, and he went to the line to shoot one-and-one.

Call it nerves, humanity, or whatever else you want, but the free throw hit the back iron and Ferguson got the rebound. Down the floor the Hawks went, and after the ball moved around a bit, Pat Calathes was wide open for a three.

The crowd held its breath, Calathes let fly, and the shot was perfect. Cue bedlam from the Hawks fans, but Tyndale saw a path to victory. Fran Dunphy didn't call timeout, so Tyndale raced downcourt, got the layup off in plenty of time... and could only watch Nivins get the last laugh.

"From one angle it looked like a goaltend, from the other it looked like a good block," Tyndale said afterwards. "So I've got to give Nivins some credit, he hustled back, so I give him credit for a great block, I think."

Phil Martelli couldn't quite believe it all.

"The better team didn't win tonight," he said. "That was the hardest handshake I've had in this rivalry, because I didn't know what to say."

The final stats really were as close as the score.

For St. Joe's: 24-for-53 from the field (45.3%), including 11-for-22 from 3-point range (50.0%) and 13-for-31 from 2-point range (41.9%), and 9-for-10 from the free throw line -- all in the second half. Six offensive rebounds, 21 defensive rebounds, 14 assists, 10 turnovers, two blocks, three steals and 15 fouls committed.

That adds up to 62 possessions and 1.101 points per possession.

For Temple: 25-for-51 from the field (49.0%), including 11-for-23 from beyond the arc (47.8%) and 14-for-28 from within it (50.0%), and 6-for-10 from the line. Six offensive rebounds, 22 defensive rebounds, 12 assists, 11 turnovers, eight blocks, four steals and 15 fouls committed.

That adds up to 61 possessions and 1.103 points per possession.

Line of the game is tough. Dionte Christmas did everything he could, scoring 21 points on 6-for-12 shooting, including 5-for-10 from three. Rob Ferguson's 19 points on 7-for-9 shooting, including a perfect 5-for-5 from three-point range, would also be a worthy nominee.

But in the end, I think it has to go to the guy who won the game. Sixteen points in the second half on 5-for-7 shooting, including 2-for-4 from the arc, to go with a perfect 4-for-4 from the line and four rebounds for this guy:

If anything was absolute at the end, it was this: the only sound in the arena was that of the St. Joe's students in the upper deck screaming, "The Hawk will never die!" and "This is our house!" at the top of their lungs.

It was the fifth straight St. Joe's win in this series and the 10th in the last 11, and I have to believe it was the most painful of all of them for Temple fans.

You tell me: was it?

The true indication of how far Temple has come over the last few weeks came in the first half today.

Running an offense that is finally starting to look like the Fran Dunphy system we know, the Owls moved the ball around well, took their time, and got good shots from the perimeter on the way to a 35-28 halftime lead.

That margin also had a lot to do with Temple's defense, certainly more so than the St. Joe's offense. The Owls blocked five Hawks shots, with three coming from Sergio Olmos and one each from Dionte Christmas and Lavoy Allen.

Ahmad Nivins was only 2-for-7 from the field, and Pat Calathes only 3-for-7. St. Joe's as a whole did not even get to the free throw line once.

Since the second half is already underway, I'll keep this brief and just give you the numbers.

For St. Joe's: 11-for-28 from the field (39.3%), including 6-for-13 from 3-point range (46.2%) and 5-for-15 from 2-point range (33.3%), and no free throws taken. One offensive rebound, 10 defensive rebounds, eight assists, seven turnovers, no blocks, two steals and eight fouls committed.

That adds up to 34 possessions and 0.824 points per possession.

For Temple: 13-for-26 from the field (50.0%), including 6-for-11 from 3-point range (54.5%) and 7-for-15 from 2-point range (46.7%), and 3-for-5 from the line (60.0%). Three offensive rebounds, 15 defensive rebounds, six assists, seven turnovers, five blocks, two steals and six fouls committed.

That adds up to 32 possessions and 1.081 points per possession.

Will it last? I don't really know for sure. But we'll find out soon enough.

Okay, back to the action.

Postgame press conference audio

-- Villanova: Jay Wright, Antonio Peña and Corey Stokes
-- Notre Dame: Mike Brey

It's bad enough when you lose at home in conference play; worse when you do so to a team that hadn't won on the road all season; and even more so when it seems like the only way you're capable of winning a game is by making a big comeback in the second half.

Villanova has defied logic enough times this season, and today logic decided it had seen enough.

Simply put, the way the Wildcats played in today's 90-80 loss to Notre Dame is no way to win a basketball game. Jay Wright knows it, and good to see that commenter Brian already jumped in.

After a Kyle McAlarney three-pointer put Notre Dame up by 17, 68-51, with 5:32 remaining, Jay Wright called timeout and the Wildcats cut the deficit to 11 (70-59) with 3:53 left on a circus layup by Scottie Reynolds.

Notre Dame took it back to 14 (78-64) with 2:35 remaining, but there Villanova went again, another Scottie Reynolds layup making it 84-76 with 49 seconds left and making all of us think they were about to pull off another one of these things.

But then the one Irishman that Villanova genuinely could not stop all day stepped up and took things into his own hands. And it wasn't McAlarney, whose 30 points were a game high.

With the Wildcats pressing after that Reynolds layup, Luke Harangody got free behind the defense, got the ball way in Villanova's end and broke away for a game-sealing slam.

It was the second big dunk in as many minutes for Harangody, the earlier one being a monstrous throwdown from the edge of the lane on the right baseline after taking a nice dish from Tory Jackson.

So it is Harangody, all 6-foot-8 and 251 pounds of him, who gets the Line of the Game:

Eighteen of the points and nine of the rebounds came in the second half.

The final numbers for Notre Dame as a whole were these: 27-for-53 from the field (50.9%), including 9-for-19 from three-point range (47.5%) and 18-for-34 from two-point range (52.9%), and an unbelievable 27-for-38 from the free throw line (71.1%). Nine offensive rebounds, 29 defensive rebounds, 20 assists, 15 turnovers, one block, seven steals and 16 fouls committed.

That adds up to 77 possessions and 1.168 points per possession.

For Villanova, whose leading scorer was Antonio Peña with 17 points (to go with nine rebounds), these were the final numbers: 32-for-72 from the field (44.4%), including 7-for-21 from beyond the arc (33.3%) and 25-for-51 from inside it (49.0%), and 9-for-12 from the line. Fourteen offensive rebounds, 26 defensive rebounds, 19 assists, 14 turnovers, two blocks, eight steals and 29 fouls committed.

That adds up to 78 possessions and 1.030 points per possession.

(As an aside, Malcolm Grant was only 2-for-7 from the field, including 2-for-4 from three, and he missed his first three and last two shots.)

The numbers that matter most, though, are these: Notre Dame took 38 free throws and Villanova took 72 field goal attempts.

The formula for offensive free throw rate is free throws made divided by field goal attempts. Notre Dame's free throw rate in this game was 71.7%, while Villanova's was only 12.5%.

Think about that while I head up to the Liacouras Center.

Here we are in the middle of the second half, and the Villanova student section is starting to take things into its own hands.

"We want Malcolm!" they are chanting, as no one seems to be able to figure out why Malcolm Grant isn't playing. I'm sure we'll get an answer after the game, but I can't say I'm used to seeing Villanova fans quite this annoyed with their team.

Finally, after Randy Ayers hits a three with 12:28 left to give Notre Dame a 57-41 lead, Wirght calls timeout and brings Grant in. Let's see what happens...

For a team that's the worst in the Big East at defending three-pointers, Villanova has been strikingly soft in the lane today. Taking full advantage of a clear edge in heft as well as height, Notre Dame pounded the ball inside throughout the first half on the way to a 39-29 halftime lead.

The Irish made a respectable four of nine three-point attempts (44.4%) , but consider their two-point shooting: 10-for-17 (58.8%). It came in all sizes, too: 6-foot-8 big man Luke Harangody and 6-0 guard Kyle McAlarney were both 3-for-5

The rest of Notre Dame's first-half numbers: 14-for-26 from the field overall (53.8%), 7-for-12 from the free throw line (58.3%), 6 offensive rebounds, 12 defensive rebounds, 9 assists, 8 turnovers, 1 block, 5 steals and 7 fouls committed.

That adds up to 34 possessions and a quite healthy 1.157 points per possession.

Villanova has had its share of problems on offense as well, shooting only 12-for-32 (37.5%) in the first half -- including 2-for-7 from three (28.6%) -- and a lot of those shots have been pretty uncontested.

The most glaring lines belonged to Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds, who combined to make only 3 of 14 shots; Reynolds was 0-for-3 from the arc.

The Cats' full line: 10-for-25 from 2-point range, 3-for-5 from the line, 10 offensive rebounds, 10 defensive rebounds, 8 assists, 10 turnovers, 1 block, 4 steals and 12 fouls committed.

That adds up to 34 possessions and 0.844 points per possession.... and, if you ask me, a few too many drives through the lane in traffic.

Jamie Yannacone of WPEN-950, the biggest Villanova expert I know of outside the Inquirer-Daily News building, sitting behind me in the press section, agrees with the lack of offensive flow and finds it "curious" that Malcolm Grant hasn't played much so far.

True enough: Grant was only on the floor for two minutes of the first half. I have no objection to Jay Wright's decision to start Corey Fisher over Grant, but you certainly can't argue against what Grant did at Rutgers and in his other big games this year.

Notre Dame's two Philly guys, Rob Kurz (Penn Charter) and Ryan Ayers (Germantown Academy), have both seen significant time, however: 7 points in 13 minutes and 5 points in 11 minutes for the latter.

Ayers' father, former Sixers coach Randy Ayers, isn't here, but other members of the family are. Ayers is an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards now, and they play at Milwaukee tomorrow.

There's no reason to think Villanova can't come back and win this game, but after their bad loss at Rutgers it would have been nice to see them come out and establish themselves with a bit more force today.

Off we go for the second half.

Nothing like going out on a Friday and realizing after midnight that I was supposed to do this 12 hours or so earlier...

Okay, it's time to move on from Penn for a while. Yes, the discussion about the state of the Quakers generated more comments on this blog than any other subject in its history, and you're welcome to continue that discussion below. But Penn is off for a week, and tomorrow the big boys take center stage.

You heard me right. Villanova, St. Joe's and Temple are the marquee programs in the city right now, as they have been historically. They all play big games on Broad Street tomorrow, the former against Notre Dame at the Wachovia Center and the latter two against each other at the Liacouras Center.

I'll be at both, hopefully doing at least some liveblogging. Whether or not I end up doing any in-game writing, I'll post the press conferences from both games here when they're done and offer some analysis as well.

Yes, that means I won't make it to Saint Louis-La Salle. It is a game I would otherwise be interested in, given how much the Billikens have been in the headlines lately -- both for their historic loss at George Washington and Rick Majerus' recent controversial step into the political arena.

Still, I hope a few of you all will be joining me for tomorrow's doubleheader. A quick check of the web shows that both games still have tickets available, reminding us that there's no better city in the country for watching multiple college basketball games in person in the same day.

Note: This is long. But it probably needs to be.

Jason S. wrote:

Another awful showing by Penn. Was never close. Team looked disinterested by the middle of the 2nd half.

Miller should be ashamed.

His entire campus is....

Okay. I was thinking about writing this post after the last round of comments about Penn's various problems, but decided to keep my mouth shut. This time, though, I'd like to speak up.

(Read Bob Ford's column today, by the way, because it also deals with this. Plus, it's shorter, which is a good thing.)

After the game last night, I ran into a guy I know who is a Penn alum and a longtime season ticket holder at the Palestra. We spent a while talking about the whole Bilsky-Dunphy-Miller question, and were basically in agreement about the fact that you simply cannot judge this program on the basis of this season.

Yes, Penn is 0-4 in the Big 5 for the first time since 2000-01. But stop and look at all four of the games: Villanova, St. Joe's and Temple are are obviously superior, not only to Penn but to a lot of teams in their conferences (except Rutgers, apparently), and La Salle is significantly better than last year.

Penn, on the other hand, graduated three seniors from a team that won the Ivy League at a canter last season -- and I can't help thinking that some people have forgotten that already.

It's easy to do that given how much the roster has changed, but you can't tell me that Miller isn't due anything for not doing the one thing he absolutely had to do in his first season -- make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in his head coaching career.

This year, all of his point guards are either freshmen or career bench guys, and his front line doesn't have any seniors in it.

Back in November, Basketball-U.com's Jake Wilson did an analysis of the combined number of career minutes played by each Ivy League team. Penn was dead last by a huge margin.

1. Columbia 11,095 minutes
2. Yale 8,746
3. Brown 8,294
4. Princeton 7,829
5. Dartmouth 6,247
6. Cornell 5,239
7. Harvard 4,769
8. Penn 3,518

That's 1,200 minutes less than the next-most-experienced team and only 31.7 percent of the minutes of the most experienced team. And keep in mind that a single game has 200 minutes available to be distributed.

So that accounts for the guys who were on the team last year, but it also means that the team's two best players aren't included at all. No disrespect meant to Brian Grandieri, who is clearly and rightly the team's leader, but last night proved once and for all that Harrison Gaines and Tyler Bernardini are Penn's top talent right now.

We already know that Bernardini is the team's best perimeter scoring threat right now. Gaines, however, is the real key.

Kevin Egee has improved a lot the last few games, but the offense really took a step up when Gaines got on the floor in the second half. The ball moved more quickly and to more places on the floor in those 10 minutes, and crucially, Penn committed only one turnover.

By the way, those 10 minutes were from the 12:02 mark to the 2:33 mark, during which time Penn cut Temple's lead to 10 points and put a little bit of fear into the Liacouras Center crowd. I am fairly sure that does not qualify as "disinterest."

So to the general question of whether this year's struggles are a a result of Miller or the players, my answer is the players. But since Miller himself has been a subject of discussion on here, I'll give my thoughts on him after the jump.

It was a better effort from Penn than their blowout loss to St. Joe's on Saturday, but like that game the Quakers fell into a big hole early and never recovered. The final score was 80-64; it was 41-22 at halftime, in large part because the Owls shot 8-for-12 from three in the first half.

For those of you wondering why I didn't liveblog the game, I didn't have a power outlet at my seat and my laptop battery wasn't going to make it through the whole game.

I have to get to sleep, but I'll have a lot more to say about this game tomorrow -- as well as the big win for St. Joe's over Massachusetts, and Villanova's ugly loss at Rutgers.

For now, here are the Penn and Temple postgame press conferences. There's also a good photo gallery from the Inquirer's Jerry Lodriguss.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

Download it here.

Today (I was actually off work yesterday for the holiday), Mike Jensen and I discuss:

-- Temple's wins over Xavier and Saint Louis
-- The attendance at the Liacouras Center for the Owls' win over the Musketeers, and whether it matters
-- Whether the Owls can beat St. Joe's come Saturday
-- Villanova's win at Syracuse
-- La Salle's three-game winning streak
-- And nationally, a shakeup at the top of the polls, including what effects it will have on the No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

Apologies for writing a new post and thus knocking down perhaps the most commented-upon post in this blog's history, but I need to bring something to your attention.

ESPN.com columnist Pat Forde's weekly Forde Minutes column that came out today contains a Bucket List of things the Kentucky resident would like to experience before he leaves this earth.

7. Feeling the brotherly love at a Big Five game in The Palestra (12).

Let this blog post stand as an official invitation to Mr. Forde to pay us a visit. As the only Big 5 games left at the Palestra this season involve St. Joe's, can I get some help from the Hawks fans to make sure he gets in and out of New Deck Tavern with enough time left before tipoff to take a walk around the concourse?

Much appreciated.

I was chatting with a friend at St. Joe's this morning about last night's game, and while doing so I realized something rather stark about just why Penn is struggling so much.

The Quakers team we saw last night -- and it's the same one we'll see Wednesday at Temple from what I hear -- isn't just missing Harrison Gaines. It's missing a quality backcourt player from every class on the team:

-- From the freshman class, Harrison Gaines. He is resting a tweaked hamstring to be healthy for conference play... which doesn't start until February 1. Nonetheless, we have already seen the impact that he has on this team and his absence has been clearly felt.

-- From the sophomore class, Darren Smith. He blew out his knee at the beginning of this year and would substantially improve ballhandling and perimeter defense if he was on the floor.

-- From the junior class, Tommy McMahon. He has missed a lot of time over the last two years due to back problems.

-- And from the senior class, David Whitehurst. Yes, he was dismissed from the school for academic reasons in 2006. But I understand that Whitehurst was back in class for the fall semester and attempted to return to the team for this semester, and while he did not do so in the end his absence can still be counted in this list.

Believe me, I don't want to make any kind of excuses for what Penn has done this year. They are bad, plain and simple, and there really is no reason to think they can win the Ivy League at this point.

Nor am I saying that the Quakers would have beaten St. Joe's if those players had been healthy. A few points here or there in November and December and the Hawks are ranked without much question.

But perhaps Penn's game against La Salle would have gone differently, or the one against Howard, or Lafayette... or Florida Gulf Coast.

The point is, I've read and heard from fans of a few Big 5 schools over the last day or so who are surprised at just how bad the Quakers are. We might as well keep in mind what isn't there along with what is.

Phil Martelli
Glen Miller

It was, somewhat to my surprise, not the largest margin of victory in Big 5 history. That honor goes to Villanova's 98-57 win over La Salle on Dec. 12, 2005. Tonight's game tied the second-largest margin, though, with a 90-50 'Nova win over La Salle (hmm) on Feb. 12, 1996.

Then again, the third-largest margin was a 104-66 La Salle win over Villanova on Feb. 20, 1974.

It is definitely the Hawks' largest ever win over Penn, though.

I can't honestly say that anyone really merits a Line of the Day out of this game, because there wasn't really one standout performance. But let's note Pat Calathes' 18 points that came with five assists and six rebounds, as well as Garrett Williamson's nine assists and five rebounds.

Okay, that's it from me for tonight. I hope you enjoyed the coverage.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the University of Pennsylvania Palestra, college basketball's most historic gym. Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky and his staff* welcome you to tonight's matchup, a Philadelphia Big 5 city series game featuring the Saint Joseph's University Hawks and the University of Pennsylvania Quakers.

* -- It is their home game.

I think that's how it goes, right? Anyway, welcome to live coverage of tonight's Big 5 Hall of Fame Game between the Hawks and the Quakers. The game is being televised on CN8, so I'll be doing the same thing I usually do for Big 5 games: bringing you highlights of the atmosphere. All the rollouts, chants, and stuff like that.

First, a bit of injury news: both teams' top point guards, Tasheed Carr and Harrison Gaines, aren't dressed tonight.

And a crowd count: Within the official sellout of 8,722, the Hawks' student section is at least twice the size of the Quakers', if not more. Penn's fills sections 119 and 20, while St. Joe's goes from 109 to the back of 209 and across to 208. The big drum is in the third row on the aisle between sections 108 and 109.

With that, let's get this thing started.

Some hijinks from the Penn band before the game starts. First, they forgot to play "Also Sprach Zarathustra" with a minute left on the pregame clock, as they usually do. Then, they played the national anthem in their traditional up-tempo style, completely throwing off the St. Joe's student section's traditional singing of the last verse.

Time now to meet the starting lineups. First, for the Hawks of Saint Joseph's University:

-- At one forward, a freshman, six feet, eight inches tall, from Noblesville, Ind., number 24, Jack Eggleston.
-- At the center spot, a junior, six feet, eight inches tall, from Washington, D.C., number 33, Cameron Lewis.
-- At one guard, a freshman, six feet, six inches tall, from Carlsbad, Calif., number 3, Tyler Bernadini.
-- At another guard, a junior, six feet, three inches tall, from Ridley Park, Pa., number 15, Kevin Egee.
-- And at the other guard, a senior, six feet, four inches tall, from Media, Pa., number 21, Brian Grandieri.

16:28 1st, 13-3 St. Joe's: As the Hawks fans chant "Why so quiet?" the answer is fairly obvious: the Hawks are dominating this game from the outset. Darrin Govens has two threes, Rob Ferguson has one, and Penn has already committed a few turnovers.

The St. Joe's student section unfurls perhaps the longest rollout I've ever seen in terms of the amount of paper used, honoring Rob Ferguson's 1,000 career points achieved at Charlotte on Wednesday: "FERG's 1,000... QUINTESSENTIAL SCORING: CONGRATS!"

15:44 1st, 13-3 St. Joe's: A media timeout, and Penn's first rollout: "Your Rollouts Suck." Uh, no they don't. Round one to St. Joe's by far.

10:57 1st, 21-3 St. Joe's: Garrett Williamson is whistled for his second foul of the game, which is the only bad thing to have happened to the Hawks thus far. They're 5-for-6 from three-point range, while Penn is 1-for-11 from the field and those 10 haven't been open.

10:45 1st, 21-5 St. Joe's: Penn's Jack Eggleston puts back a missed three from the right corner by Remy Cofield, drawing as much applause from the St. Joe's fans as from Penn.

7:21 1st, 21-5 St. Joe's: A media timeout. I have to say, if Savannah State hadn't already broken Penn's record for fewest points in a half, I'd be getting worried.

A St. Joe's rollout, this one on red paper: "3 + 3 = PENN'S 1ST HALF vs. FLORIDA GULF COAST." Maybe they should have waited another point?

5:46 1st, 30-7 St. Joe's: A third-chance putback by Brian Grandieri puts Penn over its total against FGCU. At the other end, Tyler Bernardini fouls D.J. Rivera missing a three. Rivera makes all the free throws.

Bob Weinhauer, who coached Penn to the Final Four in 1979, is sitting in the front row at center court. I wonder what he's thinking.

5:07 1st, 32-8 St. Joe's: Ahmad Nivins picks up his third foul. Not that it matters, but it did happen.

4:23 1st, 32-12 St. Joe's: Rockwell Moody misses the front end of a one-and-one and Penn's Dan Monckton gets the rebound, He fires a 3/4-court pass to Brian Grandieri who makes a layup without having to take a dribble. Phil Martelli calls a timeout. Leading by 20 points.

HALFTIME, 38-14 St. Joe's: A Brian Grandieri three rims out at the buzzer to close things. During the last few seconds, the St. Joe's student sections started unfurling a rollout that takes two pieces of paper to fully display: "CONGRATS, RAP, NEWEST HAWK IN BIG 5 HALL of FAME"

St. Joe's shot 13-for-25 from the field, including 6-for-9 from three-point range, and 6-for-10 from the free throw line. Three offensive rebounds, 14 defensive rebounds, 9 assists, 7 turnovers, 3 blocks, 7 steals and 7 fouls committed. That adds up to 34 possessions and 1.126 points per possession.

Penn shot 6-for-29 from the field, including 1-for-12 from three, and 1-for-2 from the line. Eight offensive rebounds, 12 defensive rebounds, three assists, 12 turnovers, three blocks, three steals and nine fouls committed. That also adds up to 34 possessions, and 0.412 points per possession.

At the end of halftime, the St. Joe's students quickly unfurled and refurled a rollout that said "FREE QUINT." I gather this has something to do with the Hawk Hoop Club message board, but that's just something I overheard. It does put the earlier Ferguson rollout in some context though.

16:00 2nd, 49-19 St. Joe's: A long two-pointer by Ahmad Nivins leads to the "Up by 30" chant from the St. Joe's students.

15:40 2nd, 49-19 St. Joe's: Another media timeout, another St. Joe's rollout: "THE SMARTEST PERSON TO EVER LEAVE PENN WAS FRAN." That's good. The Penn fans respond by chanting " 'Nova Rejects," and the St. Joe's fans chant "Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!"

10:37 2nd, 59-25 St. Joe's: The Hawks student section is so bored that they're trying to get a wave going from front to back. It isn't working.

7:51 2nd, 64-30 St. Joe's: A Penn rollout for the first time in a while: " 'Nova's still better." I can't tell if the boos from the St. Joe' s students are for the rollout or the Penn dance team. It seems to be the latter. St. Joe's has another rollout, in two parts that descend separately: "HEY PENN, LOAN FREE AID IS COMING... / BUT GOOD BASKETBALL IS GONE!"

4:26 2nd, 71-40 St. Joe's: Glen Miller calls timeout, the St. Joe's students start chanting "Put in C.J. [Brown]," and fans at both ends are heading for the exits.

3:29 2nd, 73-40 St. Joe's: Just before the final timeout, the St. Joe's students start chanting "This is our house!" And nine months or so from now, they'll finally be right.

2:19 2nd, 76-40 St. Joe's: Phil Martelli yells, "C.J.!" and the predictable response comes from the fans.

1:42 2nd, 78-40 St. Joe's: Phil Martelli calls timeout to get Brown on the floor.

0:00 2nd, 82-42 St. Joe's: A Jack Eggleston backdoor layup closes out a St. Joe's rout -- on the court and in the stands.

Final stats: St. Joe's shot 32-for-56 from the field, including 9-for-16 from three-point range, and 9-for-14 from the free throw line. Seven offensive rebounds, 27 defensive rebounds, 27 assists (!), 10 turnovers, five blocks, 12 steals and 10 fouls committed. That adds up to 66 possessions and 1.249 points per possession.

Penn shot 16-for-59 from the field -- 27.1 percent -- including 5-for-27 from three... and yes, that's almost half their field goal attempts, and 5-for-6 from the line. 15 offensive rebounds, 21 defensive rebounds, 12 assists, 19 turnovers, 4 blocks, 4 steals and 15 fouls committed. That also adds up to 66 possessions, but 0.638 points per possession.

That wraps it up for now; I'll post the press conferences later.

"5:24," Don DiJulia said to me when I walked up to the concourse a few minutes thereafter to find some St. Joe's fans waiting to have their tickets torn.

At the front of the line, standing right next to my Philly.com colleague Patrick Carney (whose alter ego is a student there), was Broomall native Andrew Cellucci (at right). Since Patrick is obviously ineligible, Andrew gets the prize for being the first Hawks fan in the house.

"It's a Big 5 tradition," he said. "Penn doesn't show up until what, 10 minutes before the game? We want to make sure that this is our house."

I've heard it said before by St. Joe's people that for various reasons, the one game they really don't like losing other than Villanova is the Penn game. It doesn't make any sense to me, to be honest. Shouldn't the conference games against Temple and La Salle matter more?

I asked Andrew, and got quite an answer.

"Penn thinks -- I don't want to sound arrogant -- but they think we're like a safety school," he said. "So it's kind of something for us to prove, playing in the Palestra even though it's their home court."

He continued.

"We just want to make our school seem like it can be as good as an Ivy League institution," he said. "We feel like we're one of the top schools in the Northeast, even though we're not an Ivy League school, so it just feels like we have something to prove."

Wow. I honestly had no idea there was that kind of inferiority complex. And I certainly had no idea the safety school chants actually meant anything.

But he acknowledged that really, St. Joe's is pretty much always the better team, which gives this game some stakes that the other Big 5 games don't necessarily have.

"It's tough for us to compete with Villanova -- they're a Big East school, they've won a national championship in the last 20 years," he said. "So it's a game we feel like we should win every year."

Interesting stuff, to be sure. I'll be back in just over an hour to set the scene and tip things off on the rest of tonight's liveblogging.

A maintenance worker hangs posters of this year's Big 5 Hall of Famers.

Greetings from the Palestra. As I mentioned on Thursday, this is my second annual attempt to get here before the St. Joe's student section arrives for their game against Penn.

I arrived at 3:52 p.m., and on my way down I expected the doors to be locked and the place to be pretty quiet. But much to my surprise, the building was full of activity.

It turned out there was a JV game going on between Penn and Northfield Mount Hermon, a high school in Mount Hermon, Mass., that has sent a number of players to the Ivy League in recent years. It is also the alma mater of La Salle's Terrell and Jerrell Williams.

Admission to the game was free, so I grabbed the first door handle I came across and walked right in. But as far as I could tell, there were no St. Joe's fans in the building.

I had actually expected some to be here by now, or at least for my project to be noted in some form on the Hawk Hoop Club message board. But maybe they were still trying to park over by New Deck Tavern for their pregame festivities (and they have good taste in pregame establishments, I must say).

So I did a quick lap around the concourse, then went outside to sit and wait.

The newly decorated St. Joe's display case on the Palestra concourse.

At 4:10, St. Joe's athletic director Don DiJulia arrived. He said that "probably by about 6-ish we'll see some bodies," because that's when the school-chartered buses are leaving campus.

So mission accomplished, I guess. But it does leave me with a lot of time to kill. Check back for updates; I'll start a new liveblogging post at game time.

I was going to do this last night, but then I realized it was Friday, and I decided to actually go out for once. Sorry.

Here goes...

I've been called out many times in my life for incorrectly using the word "irony," but I think I've come up with a correct case in which to use the word.

Commenter louis wrote this on Thursday night:

i forgot more about the big five then you will ever know,you stink.

Aside from the fact that I had just come out of the shower when I saw the comment, he makes a somewhat interesting point. I freely admit that there are a lot of people out there who have forgotten more about the Big 5 than I will never know, and I was reminded of that again today.

One of the reasons why I love the City Series as an institution is that it treasures its history unlike almost anything else I've ever seen in sports in this country. That ethic was on display this afternoon at the Palestra for the annual Big 5 Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

There's no way I can know as much about the Big 5 as James "Booney" Salters, Rap Curry, Claudrena Harold and Donnie Carr (pictured above from left to right), because they played in it and I didn't.

There's no way I can know as much about the Big 5 as Salters' old coach, Bob Weinhauer, who was in the house today, or Phil Martelli or Fran Dunphy, because they've coached in the Big 5 and I haven't.

There's no way I can know as much about the Big 5 as Jack Scheuer of the AP, because he has written about college basketball in this town since the first ever Holy War and I haven't even been alive for half the Big 5's existence.

It is for those very reasons that I treasure being at events like the Hall of Fame ceremony, because I get to connect to the Big 5's past in a way that isn't really possible with most other sports.

This video of highlights from today's induction speeches is just a small part of what it's like to be in a space with so many people that are so closely connected with each other not only in the past but in the present as well.

Baseball comes closest, but there's something a lot more personal in the connection between fan and player at a college than there is in a pro stadium. Maybe it's the proximity to the floor, maybe it's the ethos of playing for whoever will pay the most money. But there is definitely a difference.

So feel free to tell me that you know more about the Big 5 than I do. But don't be surprised if I come back at you wanting to learn something that you know.

Jack asks:

By the way, how many teams from the A-10 do you think get in this year?

Before last night, I would have been able to make a good case for four: Xavier, Dayton, Massachusetts and Rhode Island in order of probability.

Rhody definitely hurt itself last night by losing at Saint Louis, while UMass took an enormous step by winning at Dayton.

My gut tells me that there is a second tier of A-10 teams comprised of Charlotte and St. Joe's, and that if either wins its big games it could beat Rhode Island to a bid.

Charlotte, with an RPI of 91 and a strength of schedule of 190, took a big step by winning at Clemson. St. Joe's might have a better shot, with an RPI of 48 and a hefty strength of schedule of 64.

Charlotte (schedule here) goes to UMass tomorrow, and could take another big step by winning that game. The 49ers get Xavier at home on Feb. 13, which is their only home game left of much consequence. But they go to Rhode Island for their last regular game of the season, March 8, and there could be a lot on the line in that game.

Now for the Hawks, and it's really this simple: win all your home games. Their next game on City Ave. is against UMass and their last one is against Xavier, which could probably afford to lose that game and not be troubled for an at-large bid.

Yes, that includes Villanova, and yes, that includes a technical road game against Penn. But I can't imagine the crowd tomorrow night being any less than 60-40 in the Hawks' favor.

Having said that, beating Villanova isn't mandatory. It would go a long way, though, because St. Joe's has to go to Xavier, Rhode Island and Dayton in that order -- the last one being on the last day of the season.

A deep run in Atlantic City would also help, knocking off at least one of the above along the way.

I just realized that I missed the one-year anniversary of this here blog. It is, if I may say so, a rather big accomplishment.

I had no idea when I started out where this thing would go, or how many people would read it. I just had a hunch that college sports fans in this region wanted more than they were getting, and that I could do something to add a new angle to what we get in the Inquirer and Daily News.

I hope I've done that. And as always, I want to know what you think of this thing. My biggest goals for the coming year are to get more traffic and more commenters, and that's entirely in your hands.

So with that said, here's a little look back at...

-- The opening post
-- The first Line of the Day
-- The first Crunchy Numbers
-- Some early riffs on statistics, Philadelphia sports fans and the CAA (and talk about a measuring stick for that conference...)
-- And finally, my attempt to beat the St. Joe's fans to the Palestra ahead of their game against Penn last year. In honor of the anniversary, I'm going to try again this year.

See you all Saturday.

Temple 78, Xavier 59.

Well, is it?

It's certainly been a while since the Temple fans had reason to storm the court.

It's hard to decide between Dionte Christmas and Mark Tyndale for Line of the Game, and to be honest I'm just as tempted to give it to Xavier's Stanley Burrell for being held to only four field goal attempts in the entire game.

But let's go with Tyndale:

UPDATE, 9:35 p.m.: And naturally, I might be wrong on both counts. With 7:20 to go in the first half, DePaul leads Villanova 34-18 because they've made eight of 12 three-point attempts. Whoa.

And the Line of the Day quite clearly goes to Charlotte's Leemire Goldwire, who did this to St. Joe's in a 70-66 win over the Hawks down south:

But hey, at least Drexel finally won a game.

UPDATE, 11:28 p.m.: A big win for Villanova too, but in a different way. Down 48-35 with 17:21 left in the game, the Wildcats rallied to take a 59-58 lead with 6:19 left and held on from there for a 76-69 win.

It took some defense and it took some rebounds -- the Wildcats had a 40-18 advantage on the boards when all was said and done -- but the result is what matters.

A seriously hurting Scottie Reynolds gave everything he had to put 21 points on the scoreboard. But let's get Dante Cunningham in the spotlight too for his 14 points and 13 rebounds.

Okay, that's enough out of me for the night.

Penn: Glen Miller and Brian Grandieri

La Salle: John Giannini, Yves Mekongo Mbala and Rodney Green.

Alright, I'm going to sleep. But before that, here's an early-edition recap of the game, and a slideshow of tonight's action from Inquirer photographer Ron Cortes.

The game is over, but you can relive La Salle's first win at the Palestra in 13 tries right here on the blog. The post reads from top to bottom chronologically.

Pregame: The visitors turn the ball over on 24.1 percent of their possessions; the home team gives it up 25.5 of the time. But either La Salle or Penn will walk out of the Palestra tonight with a Big 5 win.

La Salle starts:

F So 12 Yves Mekongo Mbala
F Jr 31 Paul Johnson
C Fr 20 Jerrell Williams
G So 10 Rodney Green
G Sr 11 Darnell Harris

Penn starts:

F Fr 24 Jack Eggleston
F Jr 33 Cameron Lewis
G Fr 3 Tyler Bernardini
G Jr 4 Aron Cohen
G Sr 21 Brian Grandieri

Will anything really interesting happen in this game? Who knows. But I'm here, and I'll let you know.

15:56 1st, 2-0 La Salle: Okay, I figured this game would be ugly, but this is quite something. Both of the Explorers' points came on free throws by Rodney Green, and the two teams have combined to miss all 15 field goal attempts so far.

(Credit for that number goes to Neil Geoghegan of the West Chester Daily Local, who did the math himself.)

15:20 1st, 4-2 La Salle: A layup by Penn's Justin Reilly gets us off the schneid; La Salle's Kimmani Barrett answers with a layup of his own to make it 4-2.

7:44 1st, 17-10 Penn: Wow, some points on the board. After a Jerrell Williams slam tied the game at 10-10, a Tyler Bernardini three-pointer (yes, really) has forced John Giannini to call a timeout to stop a 7-0 Quakers run.

2:48 1st, 26-22 Penn: La Salle's big contingent of fans here wakes up after the Explorers hit two threes in a row.

After Jerrell Williams sank one from the left side, Penn tried to push a fastbreak but missed a putback layup. At the other end, Darnell Harris hit nothing but net from the right side to make it 23-22.

On the ensuing possession, Bernardini was fouled going up by Jerrell Williams but managed to get an off-balance layup to bounce off the rim twice and go in. He converted the free throw.

HALFTIME, 29-24 Penn: La Salle holds for the last shot but Darnell Harris turns it over with four seconds left; Penn's Aron Cohen heaves up a three from a few steps outside the arc and it bounces off the rim.

La Salle shot 7-for-29 from the field, including 2-for-6 from three, as well as a perfect 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Seven offensive rebounds, 14 defensive rebounds, six assists, seven turnovers, four blocks, four steals and seven fouls committed.

That adds up to 33 possessions, 0.731 points per possession and -- the big stat of the night, as noted above -- a turnover percentage of 21.3.

Penn shot 13-for-34 from the field, also including 2-for-6 from three, but only 1-for-4 from the line. Eight offensive rebounds, 15 defensive rebounds, nine assists, six turnovers, five blocks, three steals and seven fouls committed.

That adds up to 35 possessions, 0.832 points per possession and a turnover percentage of 17.2.

So both teams are reasonably below their season averages, at least thus far.

13:03 2nd, 41-35 La Salle: After a Cameron Lewis backdoor pass to Aron Cohen gave Penn a 35-30 lead, the Explorers have launched an 11-0 run. Darryl Pardin capped it with a fastbreak layup, forcing Glen Miller to call a timeout.

7:36 2nd, 50-44 La Salle: The Explorers have done a good job protecting their lead. If they end up winning, the biggest reason why will probably be their performance from the free throw line. After going 8-for-8 in the first half, they are 9-for-10 so far in the second half.

Penn, meanwhile, is 3-for-7 in the game and has only taken three attempts this half.

3:36 2nd, 53-50 La Salle: Penn is still breathing, thanks to a Tyler Bernardini three and a La Salle turnover that led to Rodney Green fouling Brian Grandieri on a drive. But Grandieri only made the second free throw.

1:35 2nd, 59-54 La Salle: After a Jack Eggleston layup cut La Salle's lead to 56-54, Darnell Harris found Rodney Green for a shot clock-beating slam to make it 58-54. At the other end, Tyler Bernardini missed a three and Cameron Lewis fouled Harris. That was Lewis' fifth. Harris made the first free throw but missed the 2nd.

FINAL SCORE: 62-58 La Salle: After a Brian Grandieri layup cut La Salle's lead to 59-58 with 31 seconds left, Yves Mekongo Mbala made three of four free throws down the stretch to preserve the win.

Not a bad game in the end, to be honest, and it snaps a 13-game losing streak at the Palestra for the Explorers.

La Salle shot 17-for-55 from the field, including 3-for-11 from three-point range, and a whopping 25-for-30 in the game -- 17-for-22 in the second half. Fifteen offensive rebounds, 25 defensive rebounds, 11 assists, 14 turnovers, five blocks, 12 steals and 19 fouls committed.

That adds up to 68.25 possessions, 0.908 points per possession and a turnover percentage of 20.5 -- well below the season average.

Penn shot 22-for-57 from the field, including 4-for-15 from three-point range, and 10-for-15 from the line. Eleven offensive rebounds, 26 defensive rebounds, 16 assists, 17 turnovers, nine blocks, six steals and 22 fouls committed.

That adds up to 70 possessions, 0.827 points per possession and a turnover percentage of 24.2.

Press conference audio to come later.

Download it here.

This week, fellow track enthusiast Joe Juliano joins me to discuss:

-- Villanova's loss at Cincinnati;
-- St. Joe's' wins over Massachusetts and Richmond;
-- Temple's loss at Charlotte;
-- Drexel's continuing struggles;
-- The upcoming La Salle-Penn game on Tuesday;
-- And the rest of the week in local and national college hoops, including all the big games and the outbreak of bad basketball that seems to be plaguing the nation of late.

Instead of feeling a sense of closure, I fear that we'll be fooled again this year in Beijing -- or maybe even at the Penn Relays.

NOTE: There is a brand-new Crunchy Numbers post BELOW this post on the blog's main page. I back-dated Crunchy Numbers so that it would leave this post at the top, which is why you'll see it if you go to the front page of Philly.com right now. But please scroll down for your weekly stats fix and let me know what you think. There are some pretty dramatic changes from last time.

Marion Jones at the 2004 Penn relays (Inquirer file photo)

We interrupt the college basketball stuff to remind you that the Penn Relays are also a big part of this blog, and as such, it is notable that Marion Jones just got sentenced to six months in prison for committing perjury.

I am sure that one of the main themes that will come along today will be that the sentence brings some form of closure to this story, similar to what the Mitchell Report was supposed to do for steroids in baseball.

For example, here's a statement on the news from USA Track and Field President Bill Roe and CEO Craig Masback:

"Today's sentencing concludes a sad series of events. The revelation that one of the sport's biggest stars took performance-enhancing drugs and repeatedly lied about it, in addition to being a party to fraud, has no silver lining. But, it is a vivid morality play that graphically illustrates the wages of cheating in any facet of life, on or off the track. We hope that all Americans will take to heart those lessons.

The sport of track and field in the United States has moved on since Marion Jones competed, reaching even higher levels of success, as a team, than when she was at her peak. No one wanted to see this happen, and we hope that Marion and her family can move on as well."

The thing is, this news doesn't bring me any sense of closure. It actually does just the opposite -- it makes me afraid that we'll be fooled again this year.

In theory, this year's Penn Relays should be one of the biggest ever. The USA vs. the World races will surely have almost all the big stars going to Beijing later this summer, competing in front of the biggest crowds they'll see anywhere before crossing the Pacific.

Given how much the event has grown over the last few years, the Saturday races should be even more electric than 2004, when Jones was here and brought the house down by anchoring the U.S. 4x100-meter relay team.

But now, we are left to only wonder how we would have reacted if we knew then what we know now... and if we've heard that before, it makes things even worse.

So when we go to Franklin Field in a few months, will we be able to believe in what we're watching?

I hope so. I want to believe that this new group of stars, such as Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix, are as clean as we think they are.

I want to enjoy the races as much as I always have, as much as the sunshine and the crowds and the fish and yam combo platters from the vendors on Walnut Street.

Because at its core, isn't the idea of sport really about believing that what we're seeing is real? Okay, I know you'll say I'm being too idealistic, but if the athletes dope and the refs gamble and the coaches shave points, how much farther do we have to go before what we watch is as fake as the scripted voyeurism that gets branded as "reality" television?

Simply put, we need sports to be real. And right now, we need track and field to not betray us again.

Okay, here goes. This week's table includes conference records instead of Big 5 records. I am also now taking my strength of schedule numbers from the ESPN.com Bracketology Nitty Gritty page.

Apparently not, Mr. Stengel.

Ladies and gentlemen, the outbreak of bad basketball that began in Fort Myers Manhattan, Kan. a few days ago with Penn's loss at Florida Gulf Coast spread to our nation's capital tonight.

In my old hometown of Washington, D.C., Saint Louis set a three-point-line era record tonight for the lowest points ever scored in a basketball game as the Billikens fell to George Washington, 49-20.

Yep, that's right, 49-20. The game was so bad that I got emails about it from people in two states and the District itself within ten minutes of each other.

The previous record of 21 points had been held jointly by Princeton, which gave up 41 at home to to Monmouth in 2005; and by Georgia Southern, which gave up 61 at Coastal Carolina in 1997.*

But tonight, a team that doesn't even play the Princeton offense set a new record for futility. And frankly, between this, Penn and Savannah State, I've just about had it.

So to try to cheer myself up before going to sleep, I'm going to give a tape-delayed Line of the Day to what St. Joe's did at UMass on Wednesday. Hopefully, it will also help you get over what Rick Majerus' team did tonight.

The eight fouls committed is actually pretty impressive, but still. One for eighteen from three-point range. Wow.

Now for the good stuff:

That's more like it.

* - Hat tip to blog reader Stu Suss for noting my original omission of the Georgia Southern-Coastal Carolina game.

Greetings to those of you coming over from ACC Now, the Raleigh News and Observer's fine college sports blog. UNC's fans came by last month, and with N.C. Stave having paid a visit to Philadelphia this past March, now we just need Wake Forest to play here to make the Tobacco Road quartet complete.

I've got a grand total of five audio clips for your listening pleasure. From Duke, here are Mike Krzyzewski and Gerald Henderson. From Temple, here are Fran Dunphy, Dionte Christmas and Mark Tyndale.

Henderson, of course, is a Merion native who starred along with Tar Heels guard Wayne Ellington for Episcopal Academy before heading down to the Triangle. The nationally-televised game those two played against Neumann-Goretti at the Palestra a few years ago was the subject of some good banter between Henderson and reporters before I turned the recorder on.

Of note, the Dunphy audio is one long clip with two parts spliced together. The first half is his press conference; the second is him talking to me and Mike Sielski of the Bucks County Courier Times outside the locker room after that.

Also of note, some final stats: Mark Tyndale scored 20 points and Dionte Christmas scored 23, the latter of which was notable for Christmas' 5-for-16 performance from the field, including 3-for-11 from three-point range. But he was 10-for-12 from the free throw line.

Duke averaged 1.051 points per possession for the game: a nicely balanced 1.049 in the first half and 1.053 in the second half. Temple averaged 0.870 points per possession in the game; 0.626 in the first half and 1.106 in the second half.

The key state for the game was probably assist-to-turnover ratio: 13 to 14 for Duke and 11 to 20 for Temple.

The crowd was announced at 18,030.

I can't honestly say that there was a great line from this game. So I'm going to steal two from the Rhode Island-Dayton game, a 92-83 win for the Flyers at a jam-packed UD Arena. A few of us caught glances of the streaming video on press row and were quite impressed by Rhody's comeback.

What impresses me most looking at the box score is that Rhode Island averaged 1.23 points per possession and Dayton averaged 1.29. Not much defense there, but I'm sure not complaining.

Here are the lines for the game's two big backcourt stars, Jimmy Baron of Rhode Island and Brian Roberts of Dayton. If there was ever a game when efficiency was meaningless, this was it:

Okay, with all that done, I'm going to call it a night and chill out to a 14-minute LP version of this song that I just stumbled across on iTunes:

(Gratuitous hat tips to Philadelphia Will Do, The Next Mayor and Heard in the Hall. Honestly, I just wanted to get it in here somewhere because it's just that cool.)

Blue Moon, now I'm no longer alone
I have a dream in my heart
I have a love of my own

-- "Blue Moon," by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

Greetings from the Wachovia Center, where some computer problems prevented me from getting this post up before tipoff. But better late than never.

I figured there would be a lot of Duke fans here tonight, but I didn't expect there to be quite as many as there turned out to be, mainly because it's a midweek game instead of on a weekend. I'd say the crowd is at least 3-to-1 blue over cherry in terms of attire, though it might be more favorable to Temple in terms of decibel level.

If nothing else, the crowd is at least in the 14-15,000 range, which is way bigger than the last time I was down here for a game televised on ESPN. The lower bowl is totally full and the upper bowl is full along the sidelines but not the ends.

We'll never know just how many of them have a tangible link to the school, but with Gerald Henderson and Brian Zoubek in town (though the latter is injured) in town, it's not so hard to claim one.

Ed Stefanski and Dave Wohl are here, which makes me wonder just whose home game this is anyway. Billy King, the Duke alumnus and former 76ers GM, is here too. Stefanski and King here at the same time... hmm.

(Wohl, for those of you who don't know, was Steve Bilsky's backcourt mate during Penn's early 1970s dynasty. He's now an assistant coach for the Celtics. Stefanski came to 33rd Street later in the decade.)

Duke started Kyle Singler, DeMarcus Nelson, David McClure, and Gerald Henderson. Henderson was introduced second and got a big ovation, but Kyle Singler might have tied him.

Temple started Mark Tyndale, Lavoy Allen, Sergio Olmos, Luis Guzman and Dionte Christmas.

Henderson scored the game's first basket at 18:34, an acrobatic reverse layup after driving from the right baseline to the other side of the basket.

Temple didn't score until Dionte Christmas hit a free throw with 15:48 on the clock. The Temple fans had all been standing in anticipation of the Owls' first points, and looked pretty confused when some people started sitting down after the free throw. You Temple fans out there can tell me whether the rule pertains to field goals or points in general.

The Owls had a 3-2 lead after Lavoy Allen drove to the basket for a tough layup and was fouled by Jon Scheyer, but a Greg Paulus three gave Duke the lead back. Temple got it to 6-5 in its favor and has trailed ever since.

Right now, there are seven minutes left in the first half and Duke is up 23-16.

Come back later for postgame press conference audio and whatever else is worth noting.

UPDATE: It's 39-23 Duke at the half. DeMarcus Nelson has eight and Greg Paulus has nine for the Blue Devils, while Gerald Henderson just has the two he scored on the opening basket. Mark Tyndale and Ryan Brooks lead Temple with seven each.

Duke shot 13-for-30 from the field, including 3-for-11 from three-point range, and 10-for-13 from the arc. Six offensive rebounds 17 defensive rebounds, 10 fouls committed, seven assists, seven turnovers, one block and six steals.

That comes to 37 possessions and 1.049 points per possession.

Temple shot 7-for-27 from the field including 3-for-15 from beyond the arc, and 6-for-10 from the line. Seven offensive rebounds, 13 defensive rebounds, 13 fouls committed, six assists, 12 turnovers, four assists and five steals.

That also comes to 37 possessions, but only 0.626 points per possession.

Marco Anskis of Storming the Floor is sitting right behind me, and remarked that he's very impressed with Duke's defense. I'm not surprised at all; as I said on this week's College HoopsCast, defense has traditionally been the Blue Devils' calling card and it is even more so this season. Duke is seventh in the country in defensive efficiency this season.

(The six teams above them might surprise you somewhat. Or maybe not.)

The Temple athletic department put out a release tonight saying that its basketball team will be taking the subway to the Wachovia Center tomorrow afternoon to get to its game against Duke.

The team will be leaving the Liacouras Center at 4:45 p.m. It might be a bit early for fans to stay down there, but you do have to give Temple some credit for trying a promotion that I never would have imagined a program of its stature doing.

UPDATE: You can read the release here. To the commenter who asked, I don't think they would have made it public information if they didn't want to get attention for it.

I just got a message from ESPN.com writer Andy Glockner, who gets a shoutout here after linking to me on his blog recently. Apparently, Penn's six points in a half against Florida State Gulf Coast is no longer the NCAA record.

The new dubious honor goes to Savannah State, an independent Division I team which tonight traveled to Manhattan, Kan., to face Kansas State. The Tigers scored a grand total of four points in the second half, and the final score was 85-25 to the home team.

As that box score doesn't have the rebounding or turnover breakdown by half, I couldn't figure out points per possession for just the second half. For the game, though, Savannah State recorded 0.399 points per possession.

The Tigers' game line was this:

I will try to get the by-half numbers in the morning.

UPDATE: With a big assist from Howard Richman, who covers Kansas State for the Kansas City Star, I got the splits by half. Savannah State averaged 0.66 points per possession in the first half and 0.13 points per possession in the second half.

And here, in all its glory, is the full second-half line for Savannah State:

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Today, Mike Jensen joins me to discuss Villanova's win over Pitt, Temple's game against Duke on Wednesday and all the other big local and national games this week.

I'd go into more detail but it's way too nice outside. Sorry.

In the end, the result is all that matters. So for the Eagles game-worthy media contingent at the Pavillion today, the first conclusion that has to be drawn is that Villanova beat Pittsburgh, 64-63. In theory, everything else matters a lot less.

But it sure took the Wildcats' offense a long time to get going, and it was sure hard to digest seeing 'Nova get out-rebounded at both ends of the floor. The Panthers got 18 offensive rebounds to the Wildcats' 15 and 25 defensive boards to 16 on offense for Villanova.

Obviously,Pitt makes almost all of its games into slugfests no matter the opposition, and particularly so for Villanova. As has been the case a few times in recent years, this game came down to who would have the bigger day: Villanova's guards or Pitt's big men.

It would certainly have been different if Levance Fields wasn't injured, but Wildcats fans should really be giving thanks for Malcolm Grant's 22 points right now -- and the fact that what looked like a really serious injury late in the game was nothing more than cramps according to Jay Wright.

Grant's biggest contribution came at the end of the first half, when he scored eight points in three possessions to help bring Villanova back from four points down and take a lead for the first time in what felt like forever. In order, Grant hit three free throws on one trip, a three-pointer that came off a sweet crossover dribble on the next and and a layup on the last one

He then followed it up with a dish to Antonio Peña that was slammed in for a dunk, giving Villanova its biggest lead of the game to that point at 30-27.

After the game, Jay Wright gave Grant some serious props, calling him the "heart and soul" of the team. I have to admit that I was quite surprised by that comment, because I sure thought that role belonged to Scottie Reynolds.

Wright was asked about his remark later on in his postgame press conference, and acknowledged the magnitude of what he said about Grant.

"I don't want you to think I'm that crazy that I wouldn't go to Scottie Reynolds," Wright said. "Malcolm had been playing great and he'd done it before, so I said let's just go with it."

To hear the full exchange, click here and listen to the full Villanova postgame press conference. You can also listen to Pitt coach Jamie Dixon and Panthers freshman center DeJuan Blair.

Blair is an absolute stud. He's been getting some hype already this year but he's only going to get more as the season goes on. The 6-foot-7, 265-point Pittsburgh native is a tank of a player, and Villanova unsurprisingly had no real answer for him inside today.

But Blair has some moves, too. I counted seven times in the game where he either made a nice pass, spun around to hit a layup or worked his way inside and got in position for a putback.

In the end, it is Blair who most deserves a Line of the Day, because he filled his scoreline like no one else on the floor this afternoon:

I know it's the Big East, and I'm sure Jay Wright will tell us that this is the nature of the thing. But even if all the other teams around here are are just as prone to have games where they shoot 6-for-26 from three, that was a bad loss for Villanova last night.

After what Penn did at Miami, seeing the 84-76 final score from Chicagoland was the last thing I needed when I got off the plane late last night.

Granted, it's early, and if the Wildcats beat Pittsburgh on Sunday (which they should, given the Panthers' injuries), it wouldn't surprise me if they're still ranked in the AP poll come Monday. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me either if they aren't ranked.

And it's not like one game does too much damage to Villanova's NCAA Tournament hopes either, especially as it's only their second loss of the season. But it does increase the need to take care of business at home, and maybe grab an extra win or two somewhere along the way.

The Holy War would probably take care of that in terms of RPI (it's technically a road game), as would the trip to Syracuse on Jan. 19.

It certainly makes it imperative to win in Cincinnati a week from tomorrow. The Bearcats are bad, but did beat Louisville at home on New Year's Day.

By the way, there might just be some hope for those of you who will be going through the Philadelphia airport soon.

It took 18 minutes from the time I hit the bottom of the escalator that leads to the AirTran baggage claim to the time that my bag arrived, which isn't the best I've ever seen but is a far cry from the horror stories we hear about PHL -- and a really far cry from the 45 or so minutes it took to get my bag in Miami because the baggage handlers were in the middle of a shift change when my flight landed.

The only problem I ran into here was that an R1 train was pulling up just as my bag hit the conveyor belt. But I was able to run across the street to the platform just fast enough to beat the conductor by half a second.

I'm a terrible basketball player (I wouldn't even bother trying to get into the weekly Palestra media game), but I'll put last night down as one of the better fast break plays I've pulled off in quite a while.

ATLANTA -- Greetings from the world's busiest airport, which this evening is very much living up to the name. Hartsfield-Jackson International, as it's officially known, is swarming with people, and my flight to Philadelphia is already delayed. So I have some time to check in with the Drexel fans on here before heading home, and more on that in a moment.

I was lucky enough to snag a chair at a sit-down place a few minutes ago and had some time to collect my thoughts over dinner. The amateur sociologist in me caught snippets of nearby conversations between bites of food, and the discussions seemed to be evenly split between this evening's Iowa Caucuses and the Fiesta Bowl highlights showing on the TV above the bar.

(The sociologist also found it of consequence that all the TVs on the concourse are tuned to CNN, while all the TVs in the bars and restaurants are tuned to ESPN. Not necessarily surprising, but still interesting.)

I'd like to think that what I heard over dinner is a random sampling of what people in general are talking about at the moment, although the pollsters would probably disagree. If nothing else, it was a bunch of people who knew nothing about each other but happened to be sitting in the same place at the same time.

Hey, isn't that how the caucuses work? Maybe we should have this thing take place simultaneously in all the nation's big airports instead of in Iowa. We might even get more participation that way... and that's more than enough politics for this blog.

Oh dear, they're starting to board my flight. Anyway, the main point I was going to make is that I was surprised that the crowd at the DAC was so small. The Drexel crowd on New Year's Eve at the Palestra wasn't that big either.

I had assumed, perhaps incorrectly at this point, that most of the Dragons' fan base was local and would thus be able to make it to those games. But maybe things have changed now.

Alright, time to get out of here.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- I try hard to not let too many things in life annoy me all that much.

But one of the things that can really drive me bats at times is standing in line at an airport security checkpoint with people in front of me who don't know what they can and can't take through.

To the guy who noted that I should carry luggage on, the real answer why I don't do it is that I don't want to have to bother throwing everything into three-ounce bottles before cramming my suitcase full, only to have to open it and unpack everything again for the closest friendly neighborhood TSA agent.

So now I have an hour to kill, and I'm starting off by lamenting the fact that the better food was outside security. Serves me right, I guess, but I'm not going through that line again.

There's plenty of good stuff to read in today's Inquirer and Daily News, though, so let's take a look. Here's my recap of the Penn-Miami game, here's the Daily News story and here are the Penn and Miami postgame press conferences.

I don't write the headlines, but I thought the Inquirer's desk folks really nailed the point. If what we saw from Penn last night had happened at any other point in recent years, instead of coming after the Florida Gulf Coast game, it wouldn't have registered as anything significant.

Any time Penn plays a BCS-conference team, it goes up against bigger, faster and more athletic players. On more than a few occasions when the Quakers have hung tough with the big boys, it's been due as much to the other team playing badly as to Penn raising its game.

Miami had a couple guys in its frontcourt that would have fit in pretty well on the football team, especially Dwayne Collins. Cameron Lewis made a creditable attempt to contain him early on, but the Hurricanes kept giving Collins and Brian Asbury the ball and Penn just couldn't stop them.

We'll find out how good the Hurricanes really are during ACC play, but they had the good sense to play to their strengths, which is more than you can say for some big-conference teams sometimes.

Think back to Villanova's game against Bucknell, and how the Bison were raining threes down throughout the first half. But once Jay Wright told his offense to pound the ball inside to Shane Clark and Dante Cunningham, they took the game over and Bucknell's lead evaporated.

Speaking of Villanova (and of airports, come to think of it), the Wildcats open Big East play tonight against DePaul in an arena that is just a stone's throw from O'Hare airport. Mike Kern wonders whether the Wildcats are ready for Big East play, while Joe Juliano notes that Jay Wright isn't quite sure what to expect of his team after a relatively easy non-conference schedule. Joe also writes a Big East preview in which he notes that Syracuse (yes, really) has had the toughest non-conference schedule so far.

As tough conference games go, there are few harder ones out there than the Big east opener for Villanova's women tonight: hosting No. 1-ranked Connecticut. If you're out on the Main Line tonight and were ever thinking of attending a Wildcats women's game, this would be the one. It might not be close, but at least you'll get to say you saw the best team in the country in person.

Drexel opened conference play last night with a 70-60 comeback win over UNC-Wilmington that was watched by 912 fans. Yikes.

Finally, let's give it up for West By God Virginia's win (as they say down there) over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl last night. At least one predicted Goliath didn't win its game, so maybe John Smallwood doesn't have so much to worry about yet.

Okay, my battery is about to die and I think my flight will be boarding soon. Unfortunately, I don't have a nonstop flight back, but I saved a couple hundred dollars (seriously) in exchange for a three-hour layover in Atlanta.

Feel free to leave questions or comments and I'll try to check in from the ATL.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- While I'm not fond of New Year's resolutions, I could do a lot worse than to try to stop myself from giving in to impulses.

Yet with little else to do besides sit outside poolside in the 70-degree air at a hotel across a divided highway from the arena where Penn will play Miami tomorrow night, I can't help it. So I ask that you indulge me this once and allow me to do something that I don't get to do very often: write for the heck of it.

Feel free to tell me to shut up and that you're never reading the blog again. I promise that I won't be offended. And I also promise that if you make it to the end of this post, there will be some normal basketball content.

There are times when I wish that instead of doing what I do for a living now, I could have a job that allowed me the time to occasionally just open up a vein in my mind and let the words flow out about whatever's going on in society and college basketball. Sort of like what Kyle Whelliston does with his travelogues, which I admit are on my mind at the moment because he published three at once today.

I've long believed in the goodness of writing for its own sake, the art of trying to put into words the meaning of sitting on the tarmac at the Philadelphia airport wondering how many planes are ahead of us in line, and whether my suitcase made it somewhere into the underbelly of the big metallic beast that was about to take me three hours and 40 degrees Fahrenheit south of the rain-delayed Mummers Parade.

(It did, though I had to wait half an hour at the baggage claim for it to show up because the baggage handlers were in the middle of a shift change, leaving no one around to move three flights' worth of suitcases. I thought that stuff only happened back home, but I guess not.)

But as the cramped plane rose into the air, so close to the sparkling blue sky and the wispy clouds that I honestly believed I could reach out and touch them, I remembered that no one actually gives a damn about such minutiae in my life, or about writing like that.

My desire to get from the airport to the hotel where I'm staying by using Miami's attempt at public transportation instead of renting a car doesn't matter a lick to you. And there's really no good reason for it to matter, frankly.

I could try all I want to glamorize the experience of looking out the window at a blinding reflection of the sun off the Chesapeake Bay, or of sitting next to the hotel pool in the dark while writing this post because I so badly want to be outside. But you'd rightly tell me to shut up and stop wasting your bandwith.

(Go on, do it.)

Still, my muse as a writer and journalist has long been an extraordinarily fickle being, and when it strikes me I can't help but do what I did earlier today when I decided to write this post -- look longingly at the fasten seat belt sign, waiting for it to turn off so that I could get all these words out of my head.

Forgive me, but those of you out there who also write for a living know exactly what I'm going through at the moment.

At last, the classic "bing" noise came over the loudspeaker, and I managed to finagle my way past two people from my window seat. I opened the overhead bin, and as I wrestled a reporter's notebook from my computer bag I noticed a pack of Virginia Tech fans in the back rows of the cabin, heading for Thursday night's Orange Bowl clash with Kansas.

A few were wearing t-shirts paying tribute to the victims of the still-haunting massacre on the Blacksburg campus that now gets filed into the big box of events labeled "last year." It was a moment of emotional grounding all those thousands of feet in the air.

When I booked this trip and agreed to cover the Penn-Miami game for the Inquirer (and I really should have noted a long time ago that Philly.com operates independently from both the Inquirer and Daily News, even though it's owned by the same company and hosts both papers' content), I thought the Quakers' game at Florida Gulf Coast wouldn't be much more than an afterthought.

But Penn's shocking loss Saturday night in Fort Myers has become a major talking point here on the blog and across the Philadelphia college basketball landscape. So I hope that over the course of my reporting from down here, I'll be able to fill in some of the details from that game as well as tomorrow's 8 p.m. affair between the Quakers and Hurricanes.

TU-fan asks a good question in the comments:

Can you explain what the efficency stat is that you always include in these stat lines??

The efficiency stat is the result of a formula that the NBA came up with to try to quantify the total impact of a player's performance in a game. It doesn't really have a unit of measure like points or shots attempted, but if you look at the formula you can see that it does have a purpose:

Eff = ((Pts + TReb + A + Stl + Blk) - ((FGA - FGM) + (FTA - FTM) + TO))

I use it because I get my Line of the Day stats from Kyle Whelliston's Basketball State, and he includes it in his boxscores. Its usefulness for me is to compare it to the number of points scored. If it's a lot higher, it means that a player contributed in many different ways; if it's a lot lower, it means that all those points weren't worth as much as we might think.

With that, I'm off to enjoy the weather, for at least a little while. The forecast high for tomorrow is 58 degrees and folks around here are complaining. They sure are spoiled.