Descriptions of Big 5 basketball have often been rife with clichés over the years when the city series games weren’t always as exciting as they used to be.
Wednesday night’s Temple-La Salle triple-overtime thriller at the Liacouras Center was deserving of all of them.
In a game that featured eight ties and 15 lead changes and saw 10 players foul out, the Owls finally outlasted the Explorers 106-99 to advance to Saturday night’s inaugural Big 5 Classic championship game. A crowd of 4,229 fans on North Broad Street saw 15 minutes of extra basketball, several milestones and plenty of resiliency from both teams along the way.
Temple, which improved to 4-2 with the win, will take on Saint Joseph’s, which won by 13 on the road at No. 18 Villanova Wednesday night, in Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. Big 5 Classic title game at the Wells Fargo Center. La Salle, which fell to 5-2 with the loss, will play Penn in the 4:45 p.m. consolation game for third place, and Drexel and Villanova will lead things off at 2 p.m. in the consolation game for fifth place.
When the city’s six athletic directors put their heads together back in April and decided to add Drexel and change the Big 5 for the first time in 68 years, they were hoping to inject life into a Philadelphia basketball tradition that had lost a bit of its luster in a pro sports-crazed city.
They’re already getting more than they bargained for with plenty of great basketball and storylines.
In a scene that would have seemed like it was taking place in some sort of parallel universe not too long ago, there was La Salle head coach Fran Dunphy, patrolling the Liacouras Center court for his alma mater, coaching against a Temple program he once led for 13 seasons. After serving a stint as the Owls’ interim athletic director before current AD Arthur Johnson was hired, Dunphy came out of retirement to revive a La Salle program where he got his start in college basketball as a player.
And any time his Explorers seemed ready to put the game away in the extra periods, the Owls found a way to keep playing.
“Everything that we just did out there, we’ve done in practice numerous times,” said an exhausted Steve Settle, who gave Temple a double-double of 19 points and 16 rebounds in 50 minutes and sent the game into a second overtime with a game-tying three pointer. “Guys stepped up, so that’s what we preach. Everybody’s into the game, so when their number is called, they’re ready to go.”
Dunphy, as he often does, didn’t dwell too much on himself or his 600 career wins that span three coaching stints at Penn, Temple and now La Salle. While he said he was appreciative of the opportunity to come back to a building he called home for 13 years, he’s still a competitor who doesn’t like to lose.
“It’s a special place,” Dunphy said of Temple after the game. “It was very good to me, and I'm grateful for that. But this is a tough, tough game to be this close. But I'm grateful to my guys to how hard they played, how hard they worked to put us in position to win a game like this. We just couldn't get it done.”
Temple, of course, could have saved itself all the drama Wednesday night had it not done its best to beat itself. The Owls, who once again played without their third-leading scorer and leading rebounder in Jahlil White as he continues to recover from a hand injury, gave away an eight-point lead inside the game’s last two minutes and missed 27 three-pointers and 15 free throws. One miss at the line from Matteo Picarelli came a little less than 10 seconds before La Salle guard Jhamir Brickus, who set a Big 5 single-game scoring record with a career-high 41 points, canned a three with 5.7 seconds left to tie the game at 71-71 and force the first overtime.
“I told them that if they made [free throws] earlier, we wouldn’t be here for three overtimes,” first-year Temple head coach Adam Fisher said.
La Salle was holding a five-point lead at 82-77 with 35 seconds to go in the first overtime after two Brickus free throws. A Zion Stanford putback 11 seconds later cut the deficit to three, then Khalil Brantley (29 points in 55 minutes) hit 1 of 2 from the line to push the Explorers’ lead back out to four before a Quante Berry three made it a one-point game with 12 seconds left in that period. Then, after Brickus hit two more foul shots to bump La Salle’s lead back out to three, Settle responded with the biggest shot to date of his Temple career since coming to the Owls from Howard via the transfer portal.
Coming out of a timeout with a little less than eight seconds left in the extra frame, Temple had shot just 6 of 31 from beyond the arc at that point. But Stanford’s dribble handoff went to Settle, who canned the three that sent the game into a second overtime.
“Coach drew up a great play,” Settle said of his game-tying shot. “First tine around, we were down three, I missed that one, so I knew if I got a second look at it, I was going to knock it down. We had a great inbounds play, and [Temple’s coaches] gave us the confidence to shoot those shots, and if I got it again, I was going to hit it.”
He did, but there was more for the Owls to overcome. Temple had a chance to close out the game in the second overtime with a little less than 10 seconds left, but the Owls missed four shots in one possession – two by Shane Dezonie, one by Taj Thweatt and a missed three by Picarelli – as time expired.
Temple finally grabbed the win by outscoring La Salle by 15-8 in the third and final overtime. Hysier Miller, who scored a team-high 20 points, had fouled out, as had Sam Hofman, Jordan Riley (16 points), Stanford (15 points on 6 of 10 shooting) and eventually Picarelli (11 points.)
As a result, Fisher was trying to close out the game in the third overtime with a lineup of Settle, Berry, Thweatt, Deuce Roberts and Dezonie. Thweatt had played sparingly prior to Wednesday night, as had Roberts, who redshirted last season and logged just one minute in the season opener.
“We always talk about it. It’s a boxing match,” Fisher said. “And we’ve got to go all rounds, so we’re ready to go.”
Cliché, yes, but the description fit the night. Fisher, as he said, needed just about everyone on his roster to win. Berry, who redshirted at Providence last season before transferring to Temple and missing some time during the summer with a wrist injury, gave the Owls 13 points in a little more than 21 minutes, both of which were career highs. With Miller and Riley having fouled out, the ball was often in Berry’s hands down the stretch, and he didn’t turn it over once. He also made a strong move to the rim that gave way to a layup that put Temple ahead by 100-93 with a little more than two minutes to go.
“He was great,” Fisher said of Berry, who added four rebounds and two assists to his stat line. “As you go through the season, there's gonna be ups and downs, ups and downs, and he's a guy that we've talked about. (Assistant) Coach (Chris) Clark's done a great job with him getting in extra work and extra film. … I thought he did a great job growing up in the middle of the game.”
So did Thweatt, who contributed four points and a big block of Brantley in the second overtime. Riley’s 16 points on 5 of 8 shooting to go with four rebounds, three assists and a steal were important, too. All of it and more was needed to help Temple overcome a poor shooting night that saw it go just 7 of 34 from three-point range, including 1 of 12 in the first half.
Stats and milestones
Wednesday night’s triple-overtime game was just the fifth in the history of the Big 5 and the first in 43 years. Temple’s last triple overtime came back on Feb. 11, 1990 in an 83-83 win at former Atlantic 10 foe UMass. … The Owls got 37 points from their bench Wednesday night and scored 19 points off turnovers.
In addition to his double-double, Steve Settle hit a couple of other significant numbers Wednesday night.
Temple's 96 field goal attempts were a program record and the most in a Division I game since the end of the 2022 regular season. .
