Women's Hoops Guru

(Guru's note: This is an enhanced version of the print story at Philly.com
Another post below this one has a bunch of facts, figures and notes involving the Temple Big Five streak.)

By Mel Greenberg

PHILADELPHIA _ On a weekend where the words super and perfect[/ITALIC] are being spoken frequently, the Temple women remained both Saturday to give the Dawn Staley coaching era another signature moment.

The Owls used a gritty 60-55 last-minute victory over La Salle at the Explorers’ Tom Gola Arena to become the first team to win four straight outright Big Five women's titles, all with 4-0 records.

"With Philadelphia being a rich basketball town, you want to be considered the best, not just amongst the best,” said Staley, who at 164-77, is just three wins from becoming the program’s all-time winningest coach.

Former Temple coach Linda Hill MacDonald was 166-130 in 10 seasons through 1990.

"I thought our team wanted it," Staley said of the exciting finish. "I thought Ashley (Morris) wanted it for her being a senior. She wanted to play a significant role to make sure that happened."

The tightly-contested battle was little surprise considering the history of overall Big Five competition without regard to men or women.

The win over the the Explorers (9-13, 1-2 Big Five) was Temple’s second straight narrow escape this week.

On Wednesday night, the Owls (13-10, 4-0) gained another last-minute triumph, beating St. Joseph’s, 70-67, at the Liacouras Center.

By staying super Saturday, the Owls extended their overall Big Five record winning streak to 18 games. The 16-0 mark, which includes the four titles, began in 2004-05.

Appropriately, Morris, a Central High graduate, and Lady Comfort clinched yesterday’s win in the final 20 seconds when Morris hit two foul shot and Comfort sank one.

The duo, who have played in all 16 games, along with seniors Nicole Pittman and Candice Borrows, are the only women to go unbeaten in City Series play, which began in 1979-80.

“It' a blessing to experience Big Five basketball at its best," Morris said."And to sweep the Big Five in four years and to come out as seniors and have an accolade like that is very impressive.

“In the Big Five, everyone competes," Morris continued. "There’s a lot competitiveness that goes on within the city.

“(La Salle senior) Carlene Hightower, she was a former AAU teammate of mine, I’ve played with her throughout the years from back in high school. She’s just relentless. She put it all out there today but luckily we came up with the win.”

The former Archbishop Prendergast star had 18 points before fouling out near the end of the game.
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“This was the best she's played in awhile,” La Salle coach Tom Lochner said.

"She's a very dangerous player," Staley said of Hightower. "We did a pretty good job on her last year, but didn't do a good job this year. They put her in positions in the scoring area, where we weren't in positions to challenge shots like the previous year.

"She's an explosive player. We just wanted to make her work harder for her points today."

Melanie Gibbons added 10 points for the Explorers.

Comfort and Shenita Landry each scored 12 points for Temple, while freshman Shaqwedia Wallace added 11 points and LaKeisha Eaddy scored 10.

"In the beginning, I wasn't too sure what this Big Five was all about," said Comfort, who is from Florida. "Our first year, it was all about the A-10. Then we started winning in the Big Five and we were like, `Oh, we can do this, too, We can break the record. It's just a real exciting accomplishment for me, Ashley, Candice, and Nicole. We're real happy about this win today.

"It was a typical Big Five road game," said Comfort, whose Owls have won nine of the sixteen games in the run of perfection away from the Liacouras Center. Two years ago at the Gola Arena, Temple had to go into overtime to win a title and keep the streak alive.

"We never play well here," Staley said. "It always takes some kind of performance (to win) by some person other than who we think is going to play well. For us it was Shenita and Shaqwedia who gave us some very good minutes off the bench."

Staley managed to blend veteran blood with newer blood to achieve Temple's Big Five accomplishment.

"I think our players are growing up," said Staley, whose team's defeats have been mostly to top 10 and other nationally-prominent opponents., "They're learning to play well together. It's still a learning process but we'll keep trying to get some of those wins back that we lost earlier.

"I just felt Shaqwedia was ready to play," Staley said of the freshman from Wilmington, N.C.. "She had a great couple of days of practice. Sometimes when other people aren't playing or feeling as great as they were in the previous games, you gotta make a change.

"It's not hard for us to recognize when that change needs to be made."

Despite recent changes, Staley said the starting five is still in flux.

"Right now it's a crap shoot. Whoever comes to practice and plays well and competes, they're going to play. If you don't do that, you're not going to play."

The Owls dominated the boards with a 36-18 rebounding advantage, including 13-3 on the offensive glass.

"We knew coming into the game, that's where we could make our mark," Staley said. "If we miss shots, we have a great opportunity to get the ball back and get an extra possession.

"Even with Shenea, she's notorious for getting offensive rebounds, but I think it was Shenita's day. And when Lady plays more than 30 minutes, we win ball games."

In the Staley era that began in the fall of 2000, Temple has now won five Big Five crowns in her eight seasons.

Overall, 25 players on Temple rosters have been involved with the 16-0 streak.

"It's no secret what we've been able to accomplish (including four Atlantic Ten titles)," Staley explained. "Nobody really likes the people at the top. You want to hone in on that position. We want to not be liked for a very long time in the Big Five."

Many of the players Saturday compete with and against each other in the Philadelphia Deptartment of Recreation's NCAA women's summer league.

The injury-riddled Explorers were back down to eight active players because of an ankle injury to Meghan Ahl. That offset the recent return of freshman Ashley Gale.

However, using half-court sets and patience in the manner of Villanova, the Explorers were able to stay close to Temple most of the afternoon.

The Owls finally got some breathing room by using the press on defense to break from a 42-42 tie with 11:45 left to play on a 10-0 run to make it 52-42 with 5:24 left.

But La Salle wouldn't quit.

A three-pointer by Gale, along with a pair of foul shots and field goal by Morgan Robertson had the Owls squirming again with a margin reduce to three at 52-49 with 3:51 left in the game.

Then Temple rookie Lindsay Kimmel fired a trey to make it 55-49 with 2:11 left.

"I knew coming in today it was a big game and I knew how much it meant to our seniors to be undefeated in the Big Five," said Kimmel, a native of Binghamton, N.Y. "I just tried to do my part and let the rest come. But it was a team effort, it really was."

LaSalle's Jamie Walsh offset that with a trey with just over a minute left, but Eaddy nailed a pair of foul shots to make it 57-52 with 37 seconds left. It was a that juncture Hightower fouled out.

Walsh missed a jumper and fould Morris, who then extended Temple's lead to 59-52 with 19 seconds left.

Margaret Elderton kept La Salle's hope alive with a trey to make it 59-55 with nine seconds left. Shen then quickly committed a foul to try to get the ball back.

Comfort, who closed out St. Joseph's, on Wednesday, went to the line to hit a pair of free throws and made the first, but missed the second. Elderton got the rebound, but then Landry stole the ball and turned it over as time ran out.

Lochner is a Temple graduate, as is his assistant coach Stacey Smalls, who was Staley's first point guard.

"It was a good game and they beat us on the boards," Lochner said. "It was hard to come them off and I pretty much think that's where the game was won. They were relentless on the glass and they pulled out a couple more shots because of that."

Lochner has been around the Big Five for a long time, serving as an assistant to former coach John Miller before Lochner became the head coach in 2004.

"I give them all the credit (on four straight titles)," Lochner said after his team fell to 1-6 in the Atlantic Ten. "I've been here long enough to know that Temple days were different at times and Dawn's done an outstanding job of turning that thing into a strong basketball program."

Meanwhile in the business of the Atlantic Ten, Temple’s win kept the Owls (6-1) atop the conference, where they began the day deadlock with No. 16 George Washington, Xavier, and Charlotte.

George Washington beat Duquesne later Saturday night, but Charlotte was upset at Saint Louis. Xavier will be at Rhode Island, Sunday.

Temple has already beaten George Washington, will host Charlotte Wednesday at noon, and travel to Xavier on Saturday.

"It's a huge week," Morris said. "We really have to compete against Charlotte and Xavier. We want to outright be No. 1 in the conference and it's going to take a lot of work."

-- Mel